A minor annoyance often mars birthdays that mark milestones — 30, 40, 50 years on the planet. Friends and family try to console the centre of attention with phrases like “30 is the new 20” or “age is just a number” and worse still, as the birthday person nurses a hangover, “you are as old as you feel”. As it turns out, these trite remarks may be right and the perception of when old age begins is as far more malleable than the measure of mortality known as a calendar. A study published in the journal Psychology and Aging titled ‘Postponing old age: Evidence for historical change toward a later perceived onset of old age’ has found that over time, the threshold for being considered “old” has moved forward. In addition, the older people get, the farther away they think old age is.
One (awfully cynical) way of looking at these changing goalposts is that people are either in denial or vain or both. In cultures — most of them, in fact, in the age of social media — that fetishise youth and confuse it with vigour and beauty, this is probably a major factor. But there’s also the more understanding and human explanation. To a teenager, a 40-year-old is over the hill. But when she reaches that age, if well-being and health are not an issue, the fourth decade may well be a peak. In fact, people feeling young for longer is something to be welcomed. For better or worse — for all the talk of “golden years” — old age is associated with ends rather than beginnings.
The problem perhaps, is with beginnings. Several research papers over the last decade have shown that young people are going through an extended adolescence. More gig work, increasingly expensive housing and less social security mean that the independence associated with being an adult is now coming much later. So, if people aren’t grown up till their middle age, why shouldn’t they be old later?
