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22 year old with fear of growing up8/24/2023 ![]() ![]() For example, about four-in-ten respondents (41%) ages 85 and older say they are experiencing some memory loss, compared with 27% of those ages 75-84 and 20% of those ages 65-74. Not surprisingly, troubles associated with aging accelerate as adults advance into their 80s and beyond. The only exception to this pattern has to do with sexual inactivity the likelihood of older adults reporting a problem in this realm of life is not correlated with income. Those with low incomes are more likely than those with high incomes to face these challenges. ![]() Moreover, these problems are not equally shared by all groups of older adults. One-in-ten say they feel they aren’t needed or are a burden to others.īut when it comes to these and other potential problems related to old age, the share of younger and middle-aged adults who report expecting to encounter them is much higher than the share of older adults who report actually experiencing them. About one-in-six report they are lonely or have trouble paying bills. About one-in-five say they have a serious illness, are not sexually active, or often feel sad or depressed. About one-in-four adults ages 65 and older report experiencing memory loss. To be sure, there are burdens that come with old age. All other age groups also tilt positive, but considerably less so, when asked to assess their lives so far against their own expectations. Nearly half (45%) of adults ages 75 and older say their life has turned out better than they expected, while just 5% say it has turned out worse (the remainder say things have turned out the way they expected or have no opinion). In sync with this upbeat way of counting their felt age, older adults also have a count-my-blessings attitude when asked to look back over the full arc of their lives. Among respondents ages 65 to 74, a third say they feel 10 to 19 years younger than their age, and one-in-six say they feel at least 20 years younger than their actual age. Nearly half of all survey respondents ages 50 and older say they feel at least 10 years younger than their chronological age. Moreover, the gap in years between actual age and “felt age” widens as people grow older. By contrast, among adults 65 and older, fully 60% say they feel younger than their age, compared with 32% who say they feel exactly their age and just 3% who say they feel older than their age. Among 18 to 29 year-olds, about half say they feel their age, while about quarter say they feel older than their age and another quarter say they feel younger. In fact, it shows that the older people get, the younger they feel–relatively speaking. The survey findings would seem to confirm the old saw that you’re never too old to feel young. However, a handful of potential markers–failing health, an inability to live independently, an inability to drive, difficulty with stairs–engender agreement across all generations about the degree to which they serve as an indicator of old age. ![]() Less than half of all adults ages 30 and older agree. For example, nearly two-thirds of adults ages 18 to 29 believe that when someone “frequently forgets familiar names,” that person is old. Other potential markers of old age–such as forgetfulness, retirement, becoming sexually inactive, experiencing bladder control problems, getting gray hair, having grandchildren–are the subjects of similar perceptual gaps. Middle-aged respondents put the threshold closer to 70, and respondents ages 65 and above say that the average person does not become old until turning 74. These generation gaps in perception also extend to the most basic question of all about old age: When does it begin? Survey respondents ages 18 to 29 believe that the average person becomes old at age 60. 1Īt the same time, however, older adults report experiencing fewer of the benefits of aging that younger adults expect to enjoy when they grow old, such as spending more time with their family, traveling more for pleasure, having more time for hobbies, doing volunteer work or starting a second career. In every instance, older adults report experiencing them at lower levels (often far lower) than younger adults report expecting to encounter them when they grow old. These disparities come into sharpest focus when survey respondents are asked about a series of negative benchmarks often associated with aging, such as illness, memory loss, an inability to drive, an end to sexual activity, a struggle with loneliness and depression, and difficulty paying bills. On aspects of everyday life ranging from mental acuity to physical dexterity to sexual activity to financial security, a new Pew Research Center Social & Demographic Trends survey on aging among a nationally representative sample of 2,969 adults finds a sizable gap between the expectations that young and middle-aged adults have about old age and the actual experiences reported by older Americans themselves. Getting old isn’t nearly as bad as people think it will be.
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