If I asked you “When would someone be considered old?” What would you answer? It turns out that the answer depends upon how old you are. The EU asked just such a question of 24,000 people a few years ago. The average person under 25 answered 59. The group over 55 answered 67. The start of being old depends very much on your perspective.

A German study published this month went further. They could look at 14,000 people who in total had answered that question 8 times in their lives at different ages. They went beyond 65 and looked at whether the effect continued as we continue to age. They found that someone aged 64 now claims old age starts at 75 and someone at 75 claims that “old” starts at 77. The gap might narrow but we all push back age. It seems that no matter how old we are we would rather not be seen as old.

Our sense of our own age

How old do you feel? Is another measure of subject age. In this case we are not projecting for other people but looking inward. The results are the same. We invariably feel younger than we are according to our number of birthdays. Felt Age is expressed as a percentage difference. We take the chronological age away from the felt age. We then divide it by the chronological age. A minus 10% therefore represents a subjective age 10% less than our chronological age. If we are sixty, we feel fifty-four. There have been many studies. All show we feel young throughout our lives. In this case the gap gets bigger as we get older.

The same German team found that the average felt age “discount” was 11.5%. On average their respondents felt 11.5% younger. The average 65 year old felt 57.5. The average 30 year old 26.5.

Healthy Ageing and Subjective Age

When we are asked about our subjective age where do we get the answers from? Are they from inside us. From our personal histories and family experiences. We are all living longer. We are all staying healthy for longer. Do these changes influence our subjective age? Do the answers vary according to when someone was born? The two recent German studies were able to test this. It turns out that they do.

The “start of old” age is increasing. The curve is moving to the right. Your answer does not just depend upon your age. It also depends upon when you were born. People from earlier generations have lower estimates of when old starts. The movement is real but not that large. There was a 4-year difference between generations 45 years apart. At any given age the younger generations thought “old age” started four years later than the older generations.

The effect on “felt age” was bigger. The researchers showed that for every decade later you were born your “felt age gap” went up by 2%. For the generation born between 1911 and 1935 the average 65-year-old felt 7-8% younger. That 65-year-old felt 60. For the generation born between 1936 and 1951 the 65-year-old felt 57. Their gap had risen to 12%-13%. By the time we get to the 1952-1974 generation they forecast the 65-year-old will feel 55, some 16% less.

What Drives these Perceptions?

The fact that there is an improvement across the generations is not surprising. It is good news. We know that healthy ageing is improving. We know we can expect a longer part of life when we are in good health. The fact that our “felt age” makes us feel younger is not a surprise. We are younger in terms of our biological age. How we come up with an exact number is not clear. We know that good health and higher education make us feel younger. If we suffer from bad health, we feel older.

“When would someone be considered old?” is a different perspective. It too can be influenced by how we feel about our own ageing. However, it is open to much more social pressure. This question can be influenced by how older people are portrayed in the media. The age of characters in the movies and on television. The roles older people are given. Are they the lead police inspector or the rather drab assistant? It can be influenced by what happens at work. By our employment, our promotions, and the opportunities we are not offered. Ageism is much more likely to influence this societal benchmark.