Increases in life expectancy, later retirement could explain the shift in public perception

• Published date: 26 April 2024
• Author: JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

"Life expectancy has increased, and this contributes to a later-perceived onset of old age. Also, some aspects of health have improved over time, so that people of a certain age who were regarded as old in the past may no longer be considered old nowadays," said study author Dr. Markus Wettstein, a psychologist at Humboldt University in Berlin in Germany

The research that he and his team published in the American Psychological Association journal Psychology and Aging under the title "Postponing Old Age: Evidence for Historical Change Toward a Later Perceived Onset of Old Age," also found evidence that the trend of later-perceived old age has slowed in the past two decades.

Wettstein, along with colleagues at Stanford University, the University of Luxembourg, and the University of Greifswald, Germany, examined data from 14,056 participants in the German Ageing Survey, a longitudinal study that includes people living in Germany born between 1911 and 1974.

"At what age would you describe someone as old?"

Participants responded to survey questions up to eight times over 25 years (1996 to 2021) when they were between 40 and 100 years old. Additional participants (40 to 85 years old) were recruited throughout the study period as later generations entered midlife and old age. Among the many questions survey participants answered was, "At what age would you describe someone as old?"

The researchers found that compared with the earliest-born participants, later-born participants reported a later perceived onset of old age. For example, when participants born in 1911 were 65 years old, they set the beginning of old age at age 71. In contrast, participants born in 1956 said old age begins at age 74 when they were 65.

However, the researchers also found that the trend toward a later perceived onset of old age has slowed in recent years. "The trend toward postponing old age is not linear and might not necessarily continue in the future," Wettstein said.

The researchers also looked at how individual participants' perceptions of old age changed as...