When does old age begin? How increased longevity tricks seniors into thinking they’re still young

It’s an age-old question.

Researchers have found perceptions about age differ wildly between generations, with senior citizens possibly suffering from “age-group disassociation” when they insist that they’re not yet elderly.

Scholars from the University of Berlin, in collaboration with academics at Stanford University, the University of Luxembourg and the University of Greifswald, Germany, examined responses from 14,056 Germans to prompts about aging, collected between 1996 and 2021. The study was published in the journal Psychology and Aging.

Among the questions: “At what age would you describe someone as old?”

In answers collected from 2021, participants aged 65 insisted they were a long way off being categorized as elderly — asserting, on average, that old age begins at 74.

Participants aged 25, however, had a radically different perspective, implying that the surveyed sexagenarians were in denial about just how advanced they really were.

On average, the 25-year-olds declared that old age began when someone turned 66.

The drastic eight year gap between responses highlights how differently the generations perceive the aging process.

Researchers said older respondents could suffer from “age-group disassociation,” described as “the process of psychologically distancing oneself from the undesired state of old age and from the group of older adults.”

However, given that various responses were collected over a span of 25 years, researchers were able to conclude that perceptions of old age have been changing over time.

In general, the average age at which someone is considered “old” is being pushed back.

During the earliest years that data for the project was recorded, 65-year-old participants said old age started at 71 — three years earlier than the age cited by 65-year-old participants in 2021.

“Life expectancy has increased, which might contribute to a later perceived onset of old age,” study author Markus Wettstein said in a press release.

“Also, some aspects of health have improved over time, so that people of a certain age who were regarded as old in the past may no longer be considered old nowadays.”

The survey results corroborate a separate study about aging which was conducted in Germany.

In data collected for that study in 2008, participants perceived old age to start when a person was 61.9 years old.

By 2018, that age was pushed back, with most respondents citing 66 as the beginning of old age.