Aging is postponed. It is not a personal or individual appreciation. There is a change in public perception about when old age begins and people of a certain age who in the past were considered old are no longer classified as old people today.
A longitudinal study conducted by researchers at Stanford University, the University of Luxembourg and the University of Greifswald (Germany) has found evidence that today’s middle-aged and older adults place the onset of old age later than they would expect. Previous generations did it. Thus, for example, while upon reaching 65 years of age, people born in 1911 set the beginning of old age at 71, those born in 1956, at the same age, placed it at 74.
The study is carried out on data from more than 14,000 participants in the German Aging Survey, which includes people born between 1911 and 1974 who have answered this questionnaire up to eight times over 25 years (1996-2021), when they were between 40 and 100 years. Additionally, during the study period, the researchers recruited additional participants between the ages of 40 and 85 as later generations entered middle age and old age, asking them, among other questions, “at what age would you describe someone as old?” And they found that, compared to older generations, later-born participants viewed senescence as later.
Now, they also detected that this trend towards a delayed perception of old age has slowed down in the last two decades “and will not necessarily continue in the future,” they warn in their report, which has just been published in the journal Psychology and Aging, of the American Psychological Association.
The researchers also observed that if you are asked “at what age would you say old age begins?”, the answer will be conditioned by your age and even your sex. And, if you’re over 65, that answer won’t be the same answer you would have given ten years ago. Because, the authors of the study explain, as people age their perception of when they are “old” becomes more distant. On average, for every ten years older, two years later the person enters old age.
Thus, for example, if on average, the participants at age 64 said that old age begins at 74.7 years, when asked at age 74 they said that old age begins at 76.8.
The authors also analyzed the correlation that there may be in how aging is perceived with other sociodemographic, psychosocial factors or health status. And they observed that women, on average, said that old age began two years later than men, and that this difference between the two biological sexes had increased over time.
They also found that people who feel lonelier, those who have worse health, and those who define themselves as older place the onset of old age at an earlier age than those who are less lonely, have better health, or feel younger.
The authors of the study believe that the widespread perception that old age is delayed probably has a lot to do with the increase in life expectancy and with health advances that allow people to live and reach older ages in better health and that make people who Due to their age, they were previously considered elderly, and they no longer live or behave as such, but rather remain fully active.
In this sense, Markus Wettstein – first author of the study – explained that this reality may be affecting how and when people prepare for aging and the image they have of older adults, without this meaning that there is progress towards less ageism.
“It is not clear to what extent the tendency to postpone old age reflects the trend toward more positive views about older people and aging or rather the opposite; perhaps the onset of old age is postponed because people consider being old to be an undesirable state,” Wettstein said when presenting the study.
On the other hand, the researchers assure that it is necessary to examine whether this tendency to postpone aging continues in the coming years and also if it is a phenomenon that occurs in other non-Western societies to better understand how the perception of old age varies depending on the age. country and culture.
