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A study indicates that the onset of old age has been pushed back due to improvements in the quality and expectancy of life, while people’s perception of the elderly has also changed

Old age is starting later and later, especially if you ask the people concerned. A study published by the American Psychological Association has found that middle-aged and older adults today believe that old age starts later than their contemporaries thought decades ago. Even later than the participants themselves said. Being old is not what it used to be. The study reflects biological changes, but also suggests a lot about the way we relate to aging. “There is a surprisingly strong historical trend toward a subjective postponement or later onset of old age,” explains Markus Wettstein, a psychologist at the Humboldt University in Berlin and lead author of the study. “And we still don’t fully understand why.”

In recent years, life expectancy and quality of life have risen. This has gone hand-in-hand with changes in society: key life stages now happen later, such as marriage and parenthood. And in many countries the age of retirement, the official gateway to old age, has also been pushed back. The diffuse concept of old age may have been pushed back a few years due to these changes, the researchers suggest. Or perhaps, in an ageist society, no one wants to perceive themselves as old.