By Paul Jarvie, Manager Employment Relations and Safety
“Ask yourself how old you would be if you didn’t know the day you were born,” sings Toby Keith in his song Don’t Let the Old Man In.
These lyrics express how age is an artificial construct. There are numerous ways to describe age and ageing. Some look back while others measure life expectancy into the future. Either way – age is just a number.
Within Western cultures, increasing age brings with it notions of retirement, doing all the things you couldn’t do while bringing up children, new adventures and new sports and recreational activities.
In earlier days, people worked until they either were injured, became ill, or they simply died on the job.
We are all living longer now (from a chronological perspective) and are healthier. Older age is not a disease in itself. We have better medicine, lifestyles and disease prevention than ever before.
However, when do we become “old”? Given we remain working longer and are healthier, what does age matter? It is a meaningless construct that we associate with superannuation, or more correctly the age of entitlement for superannuation. It does not mean “stop work”.
According to an OECD report 2020, the average age for retirement was 63.4 for women and 64.2 for men. While this is interesting, the report also indicated the average years people live after retirement. Men averaged 18.7years (max 24, lowest 11.5) and for women 22.8 years (max 26.4 and lowest 13.2).
Across the world there are growing pressures to increase the age of entitlement for pension funds. A pension age of 67 is not uncommon, while some are looking at 70 years.
Another interesting perspective is that age depends on the age of the beholder. Younger people see age and ageing quite differently from those experiencing older age: no great surprises there. However, it does indicate the weak subjective data used to attribute age.
Does a person’s age matter? From a job perspective, if they are performing, arrive on time, are engaged, communicate, and have a quality work ethic, then age shouldn’t matter.
There are several ways to describe age:
- Chronological: The simplest means is purely counting the days, weeks, months, and years from birth. It is accurate – in that it can indicate times when chronic illnesses and diseases may appear. Apart from that, this measure is one-dimensional.
- Biological: This uses multiple factors including lifestyle, activity levels and diets and through modelling predicts how well your body has coped with life to that point in time. Young, hard-living people can have old biological bodies and vice versa.
- Social age is a measure of social habits and behaviour over time. It measures how individuals act and react to social stimuli against what we accept as social norms.
The above measures are examples of different ways to describe where a person is at a moment in time.
The way other people view age depends on their age, health status, geography, and education levels. What is considered old in one country is likely to be considered differently even though the chronological age may be the same. Old age cannot be universally defined because it is context sensitive.
It has been generally accepted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) that getting old is around 55- 60, although other researchers put it between 45-65.
The fact is, there is no magic number that defines one as being old, rather it places us on a spot in a continuum of time. In a recent report (2023 Mercer World Economic Forum), 39% of surveyed people stated being in your 70s was old while another 37% thought it was being in your 80s. Only 14% stated being your 60s was old.
Other surveys identified that 60% of young people (18-29) and only 16% of respondents (60 and older) said 65 was old. (“When does someone become old” Joe Pinsker 2020). Over two thirds of respondents considered 65 to be middle-aged or even young. However, if 65 is middle age, does this mean we will see people walking around at 130?
How old you are really depends on who you ask.
All the various descriptors of age bands (Gen X, Millennials through to the Greatest Generation) have different perceptions.
The Gen Xers stated 65 is old (US Trust report) while the Silent Generation had old at 73. Another US study (Let’s Get Checked 2020) had 57 as officially old.
In NZ (from empirical data) those looking for a job said that 47/48 was viewed as being old, while, if still working, fellow employees considered those 55-plus as being old. Under the NZ Human Rights Act 1993, it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of age.
There are others who try to describe age by bands: early, middle and later life.
The United Nations historically defined older persons as 60 years or over. Unfortunately, those statements failed to recognise individuals, their lifestyles, their work type, and geography. People living in Third World countries would generally consider 60 to be well into older age while those in modern Western-type countries may well pick a higher number. Describing a specific number implies that when a 59-year-old wakes up on their birthday they suddenly become old!
Sergei Scherbov, Deputy Program Director of the World Population Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, talks about becoming old when you have 15 years of life expectancy yet to live. That said, if our life expectancy in NZ is 86 for men and 87 for women, then becoming old starts at 71 and 72, respectively. The World Economic Forum also uses this model. Being 65 doesn’t indicate older age; it’s when you have 15 years left to live. How they know this is unknown…
Research indicates that the older you are, the younger you feel. This may show in activities, dress and interests.
The role the media plays in this is significant. The manner in reporting events and use of discriminatory words reinforces the hardwired myths about older people, such as “man hurt in car accident” verses “old man” or “pensioner hurt in car accident”.
The real question is: when are you too old to work? Looking at the US and other world leaders, the answer is: you are never too old to work.
Broadly speaking we can say old age is the third age, according to Professor Teresa Orosa Fraíz of the facultyof Psychology at the University of Havana and cited in an article by Teresita de Jesús Martínez Pérez et al.
The three phases of old age:
Phase one: Young old
- Here sleep may decrease and muscles may begin to weaken and atrophy.
- People begin to remember the past and may experience the empty nest syndrome.
Phase two: Middle old
- Muscles and bones weaken and poor posture can cause discomfort. Some of the senses (sight, hearing) may diminish.
- Mental agility may be affected, and new learning may be difficult. Early signs of dementia and Alzheimer’s may present.
Phase three: Old old
- May be living alone with more health problems.
- Increasing mental health issues, depression, loneliness
Is it worthwhile to describe age as such when in reality it is how one feels and functions that is important? Using artificial constructs can artificially put people into boxes and thus predetermine outcomes for them.
In a world of decreasing labour supply, skill sets and increasing need for older people to work, age does not matter. Business needs all the labour it can get. We are competing on the international stage for labour when we have an increasing pool of labour at hand.
The language we use to describe people older than us is important. Some to be respectful, some funny, some to attribute seniority and knowledge etc. There is no one term that catches the broad variety of people as they age. There are simply numerous things that people are doing at different ages of their lives. To then label them arbitrarily as all seniors, elderly, over the hill, in their golden years is simply not correct.
Each of these common words used has connotations attached both positive and negative – so the context of the descriptor is important to establish.
What has become clearer is the term “older” seems to be better accepted, even though 65, 75 and 85 year olds consider themselves as not being old – so what are they? Elderly has a negative connotation attached to it. The word “old” is also negative as we are all striving not to get there, so “older” appears to have the least negativity surrounding it. So where have we got to? Using older persons or older adults is most acceptable with the least negative overtones.
All the myths that abound for older people are just that – myths. Research time and again debunks all the stories and beliefs that surround older people, yet they persist. Unfortunately, this perpetuates the ageism that we see directed at older people, but also for younger people.
Age is just a number. It does not and cannot say anything about that person.
Ageism
If we are young and starting off in our working lives, or growing older, ageism becomes more apparent. A recent report “Global report on ageism, World Health Organization 2021” explores this topic and offers governments, business, and individuals’ ways to navigate this worldwide challenge. The following has been taken from this report.
Ageism refers to the stereotypes (how we think), prejudice (how we feel) and discrimination (how we act), directed towards people based on their age. It can be institutional, interpersonal, or self-directed. Institutional ageism refers to the laws, rules, social norms, policies and practices of institutions that unfairly restrict opportunities and systematically disadvantage individuals because of their age. Interpersonal ageism arises in interactions between two or more individuals, while self-directed ageism occurs when ageism is internalised and turned against oneself.
The three dimensions of ageism are:
- Stereotypes (thoughts): Stereotypes are cognitive structures that store our beliefs and expectations about the characteristics of members of social groups, and stereotyping is the process of applying stereotypic information. Stereotypes guide our social behaviour and often govern what information we seek and remember,
- Prejudice (feelings): Prejudice is an emotional reaction or feeling, either positive or negative, that is directed towards a person based on their perceived group membership. Prejudice contributes to creating or maintaining hierarchical status relations between groups. In the case of ageism, prejudice is directed towards an individual or a group based on perceptions of their age.
- Discrimination (actions or behaviour): In relation to ageism, discrimination relates to behaviours – including actions, practices, and policies – that are directed towards people based on their age.
Ageism starts in childhood and is reinforced over time. From an early age, children pick up cues from those around them about their culture’s stereotypes and prejudices, which are soon internalised. People then use these stereotypes to make inferences and to guide their feelings and behaviour towards people of different ages and towards themselves.
Globally, one in two people are ageist against older people. In Europe, the only region for which we have data on ageism, one in three reports having been a target of ageism, and younger people report more perceived age discrimination than other age groups.
Ageism has serious and far-reaching consequences for people’s health, wellbeing and human rights. For older people, ageism is associated with a shorter lifespan, poorer physical and mental health, slower recovery from disability and cognitive decline. Ageism reduces older people’s quality of life, increases their social isolation and loneliness (both of which are associated with serious health problems), restricts their ability to express their sexuality and may increase the risk of violence and abuse against older people.
Ageism can also reduce younger people’s commitment to the organisation they work for. For individuals, ageism contributes to poverty and financial insecurity in older age, and one recent estimate shows that ageism costs society billions of dollars.
The world, including New Zealand, is running out of labour. We are competing for migrant labour, and we have a skills shortage. Given this scenario, businesses are urged to look at older workers as an asset and develop strategies to retain and reskill this inhouse labour force.
Age should not be a barrier to continued employment or recruiting an older person.
