essays on getting old

Loneliness, loss and regret: what getting old really feels like – new study

Senior Lecturer in Education with Psychology, University of Bath

Research Associate, University of Bath

Disclosure statement

Sam Carr receives funding from Guild Living.

Chao Fang receives funding from Guild Living.

University of Bath provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Paula* had not been living in her retirement apartment for very long when I arrived for our interview. She welcomed me into a modern, comfortable home. We sat in the living room, taking in the impressive view from her balcony and our conversation unfolded.

Paula, 72, told me how four years ago she’d lost her husband. She had been his carer for over ten years, as he slowly declined from a degenerative condition.

She was his nurse, driver, carer, cook and “bottle-washer”. Paula said she got used to people always asking after her husband and forgetting about her. She told me: “You are almost invisible … you kind of go in the shadows as the carer.”

While she had obviously been finding life challenging, it was also abundantly clear that she loved her husband dearly and had struggled profoundly to cope with his death. I asked Paula how long it took for her to find her bearings, and she replied:

Nearly four years. And I suddenly woke up one day and thought, you idiot, you are letting your life fade away, you have got to do something.

There were photographs of Paula’s late husband on the wall behind her. I noticed a picture of him before his illness took hold. They seemed to be at some sort of party, or wedding, holding glasses of champagne. He had his arm around her. They looked happy. There was a picture of her husband in a wheelchair too. In this picture they both looked older. But still happy.

This story is part of Conversation Insights The Insights team generates long-form journalism and is working with academics from different backgrounds who have been engaged in projects to tackle societal and scientific challenges.

Losing her husband had left Paula with an irreplaceable void in her life that she was still working out how to fill. In our interview, I glimpsed the extent of the deep, unavoidable sense of loneliness that losing a spouse can create for the bereaved partner – a painful theme our team would revisit many times in our interviews with older people.

The Loneliness Project

The pandemic brought the longstanding issue of loneliness and isolation in the lives of older people back into the public consciousness. When COVID-19 hit, we had only just completed the 80 in-depth interviews which formed the dataset for what we called The Loneliness Project – a large-scale, in-depth exploration of how older people experience loneliness and what it means for them.

I (Sam) am a psychologist with a particular interest in exploring human relationships across the lifespan. Chao, meanwhile, is a research associate based in the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath. His research focuses on bereavement experiences and exploring emotional loneliness of people living in retirement communities. For the last two years, we’ve been working on the Loneliness Project with a small research team.

Above all, the project sought to listen to older people’s experiences. We were privileged to hear many people, like Paula, talk to us about their lives, and how growing old and ageing creates unique challenges in relation to loneliness and isolation.

The research – now published in Ageing and Society – generated over 130 hours of conversations and we started to make sense of what our participants told us with an animated film.

We found that ageing brings about a series of inevitable losses that deeply challenge people’s sense of connection to the world around them. Loneliness can often be oversimplified or reduced to how many friends a person has or how often they see their loved ones.

But a particular focus for us was to better understand what underpins feelings of loneliness in older people on a deeper level. Researchers have used the term “existential loneliness” to describe this deeper sense of feeling “separated from the world” – as though there is an insurmountable gap between oneself and the rest of society. Our objective was to listen carefully to how people experienced and responded to this.

The older people in our study helped us to better understand how they felt growing old had affected their sense of connecting to the world – and there were some core themes.

For many, ageing brought about an inevitable accumulation of losses. Put simply, some of the people we spoke to had lost things that had previously been a major part of feeling connected to something bigger than themselves.

Loss of a spouse or long-term partner (over half of our sample had lost their long-term spouse) was particularly palpable and underlined the deep-rooted sense of loneliness associated with losing someone irreplaceable. Reflecting on the loss of her husband, Paula said:

When he was gone, I didn’t know where I fitted anymore. I didn’t know who I was anymore because I wasn’t [upset] … You just existed. Went shopping, when you needed food. I didn’t want to see people. I didn’t go anywhere.

There was evidence of how painful this irreplaceable void was for people. Douglas, 86, lost his wife five years before speaking to us. He tried his best to articulate the sense of hopelessness, despair – and sheer loss of meaning – it had created for him. He said it hadn’t stopped being difficult, despite the passing of time, adding: “They say it gets better. It never gets better.”

Douglas explained how he never stops thinking about his wife. “It’s hard for people to understand a lot of the time,” he said.

People also talked about how learning to live in the world again felt alien, terrifying and, frequently, impossible. For Amy, 76, relearning how to do the “little things in life” was a lonely and challenging experience.

It took me a long time … just to go down for breakfast on my own … I’d have to bring a paper or a book to sit with. And never ever, I would never, ever go and have a cup of coffee on my own in a coffee shop. So, I literally ‘learnt’ to do that. And that was a biggy, just going to a coffee shop and having a coffee.

Amy said going into busy places on her own was hard because she thought everyone was looking at her. “I would always do it with Tony, my husband, whatever … But to do it on your own, a biggy. It’s stupid, I know, but anyway, hey ho.”

For Peter, 83, the loss of his wife had created a painful void around feelings of touch and physical intimacy that had always made him feel less alone.

I suppose all my life sex has been lovemaking. I mean, we are really getting personal now, but when my wife died, I missed that so, so much. It’s much more enjoyable in old age, you know, because, I mean, if I said it to you you’d think oh good grief, that horrible old body and all the spots and bumps and cuts and wounds and … takes off a wooden leg and … takes out the eye. Sorry [laughs] … But it’s not anything like that because you know you are in the same boat … you get round it, some peculiar way, you accept it all.

Another man, Philip, 73, also described the pain in this loss of intimacy. He said:

At my wife’s funeral, I said the one thing I will miss most is a kiss goodnight. And blow me, afterwards, one of our friends came round, and she said, ‘well, we can send each other kisses if you like but by text every night’, and would you believe, we still are, we still do.

With the very old people we talked with, there was a sense that loss of close and meaningful connections was cumulative. Alice, 93, had lost her first husband, her subsequent partner, her siblings, her friends and, most recently, her only son. With a sense of sadness and weariness, she explained:

You know, underneath it all I wouldn’t mind leaving this world. Everyone has died and I think I’m lonely.

Researchers at Malmö University, Sweden, have described an acute sense of existential loneliness in very old age, that is partly a reflection of an accumulated loss of close connections.

The study found that the result can be understood as if the older person “is in a process of letting go of life. This process involves the body, in that the older person is increasingly limited in his or her physical abilities. The older person’s long term relationships are gradually lost and finally the process results in the older person increasingly withdrawing into him or herself and turning off the outside world”.

‘A stiff upper lip’

Studies of loneliness have highlighted how an inability to communicate can bring about a feeling that “the soul is incarcerated in an insufferable prison”.

This was reflected in our study too. Many of our participants said they had trouble communicating because they simply didn’t have the tools required to convey such complicated emotions and deeper feelings. This led us to contemplate why some older people might not have developed such essential emotional tools.

Research has suggested that older people born in the first half of the 20th century were unwittingly indoctrinated into the concept of the “stiff upper lip”. Through most of their lives – including wartime, peacetime employment, conscription to military service, and family life – there was a requirement to maintain high levels of cognitive control and low levels of emotional expression.

Some of our participants seemed to be implicitly aware of this phenomenon and how it had shaped their generation. Polly, 73, explained it succinctly for us:

If you don’t think about it, if you don’t give it words, then you don’t have to feel the pain … How long is it since men cried in public? Never cry. Big boys don’t cry. That is certainly what was said when I was growing up. Different generation.

People said that wartime childhoods had “hardened them”, led to them suppressing deeper feelings and feeling the need to maintain a sense of composure and control.

For example, Margaret, 86, was a “latchkey child” during the war. Her parents went out at 7am and she had to get up and make her own breakfast at the age of nine. She then had to catch a tram and a bus to get to school and when she got back at night her parents would still be out, working late.

So I used to light the fire, get the dinner ready. But when you are a child, you don’t think about it, you just do it. I mean, no way did I count myself as a neglected child, it was just the way it was in the war, you just had to do it …“

Margaret said it was "just an attitude”. She went to 11 schools, travelled around the country because of the war and had nothing really to do with other people. She added: “I think it makes you a little bit hard … I think sometimes I am a hard person because of it.”

As interviewers who have grown up in a culture that is perhaps more permissive of emotional expression than had been the case for many of the people we interviewed, it was sometimes difficult for us to witness how deep-rooted people’s inability to express their suffering could be.

Douglas was clearly struggling deeply after the death of his wife. But he lacked the tools and relationships to help him work through it. He said he had nobody who was close to him who he could confide in. “People never confided in my family. It was different growing up then,” he added.

Heavy burdens

The burden of loneliness for older people is intimately connected to what they are alone with. As we reach the end of our lives, we frequently carry heavy burdens that have accumulated along the way, such as feelings of regret, betrayal and rejection. And the wounds from past relationships can haunt people all their lives.

Gerontologist professor, Malcolm Johnson, has used the term “ biographical pain ” to describe psychological and spiritual suffering in the old and frail that involves profoundly painful recollection and reliving of experienced wrongs, self-promises and regretted actions.

He has written that: “Living to be old is still considered to be a great benefit. But dying slowly and painfully, with too much time to reflect and with little or no prospect of redressing harms, deficits, deceits, and emotional pain, has few redeeming features.”

Many of those we spoke to told us how hard it was to be left alone with unresolved pain. For example Georgina, 83, said she learned in early childhood that she was “a bad person … stupid, ugly”. She remembered her brother, as an older man, dying in hospital, “connected to all these machines”. However, she could neither forgive nor forget the abuse he had inflicted upon her during childhood. “My faith told me to forgive him but, ultimately, he scratched me in my soul as a kid,” she added.

People carried memories and wounds from the past that they wanted to talk about, to make sense of and to share. Susan, 83, and Bob, 76, talked about painful and difficult memories from their early family lives.

Susan spoke about how she had a nervous breakdown when her family “disowned” her after she fell pregnant at the age of 17. She said:

I come from this secret family. We all had to present as expected. If you didn’t, you were out, and that was the bottom line. I look back on my life and I wonder that I survived.

While Bob remembered a life of violence at the hands of his father. “I copped so many hidings from him. Then one night … my old man had a bad habit. He would get up and walk past you and smack you in the ribs. I sensed it coming, I was out of my chair in a flash, I caught him, crossed his hands over his wrists, and jammed my knuckle into his Adam’s Apple. That was family life,” he said.

Janet, 75, explained to us that she felt what was lacking from her life was a space where she could talk about, make sense of, and reflect on the biographical pain she had accumulated.

This is what I miss a lot, a private space to talk … All my life I’ve suffered … and some things I do find very hard … With everything that’s gone wrong, I would like to talk to somebody, no advice, I want to let off steam, make sense of it all, I suppose. But it doesn’t happen.

Your life mattered

Thinking about how older people can be supported must involve a fuller understanding of what loneliness really means for them. Some of our own efforts have focused on ways of helping older people retain a sense that they are valued in the world and that they matter.

For example, the Extraordinary Lives Project sought to listen to older people’s recollections, wisdom and reflections. Sharing these recollections with others, including younger generations, has been mutually beneficial and helped older people to feel that the lives they have lived counted for something.

There is also a need to consider how to support older people in relation to coping with some of the inevitable losses ageing creates that threaten their sense of connection to the world. Organisations seeking to connect people going through these struggles can play a role in developing a sense of “coping together”.

Such organisations already exist in relation to support for widows , provision of spaces like death cafes to talk about death and dying and improving access to and awareness of psychological and emotional therapies for older people.

So support is out there but it is often fragmented and difficult to find. A core challenge for the future is to create living environments in which these mechanisms of support are embedded and integrated into older people’s communities.

Listening to all these experiences helped us to appreciate that loneliness in later life runs deep – much deeper than we might think. We learned that growing old and approaching the end of life create unique sets of circumstances such as loss, physical deterioration and biographical pain and regret that can give rise to a unique sense of disconnection from the world.

Yet people can and did find their way through the significant challenges and disruptions that ageing had posed them. Before I (Sam) left her apartment, Paula made me a cup of tea and a ham sandwich and told me:

It’s funny, you know, I had a building which I had inherited, and I had some money in the bank but who was I, what was I anymore? That was my main challenge. But now, four years later, I’ve moved to a retirement village and I’m noticing there’s just a little thrill associated with being able to do exactly as I please – and if people say, ‘Oh but you should do this,’ I go, ‘No, I shouldn’t!’

*All names in this article have been changed to protect the anonymity of those involved.

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Essay on Getting Older

Students are often asked to write an essay on Getting Older in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Getting Older

What it means to grow older.

Growing older is a part of life. It means you have more birthdays and get taller. Your body changes, and you can do more things by yourself. As you grow, you learn new stuff at school and from friends.

Changes in Your Body

When you get older, your body grows. You might get stronger and faster. Some kids can’t wait to be tall like their parents. Your body also starts to look different as you become a teenager.

Learning More

Getting older means learning more. You can read better, solve harder math problems, and understand the world more. School gets tougher, but you can handle it because you’re growing up.

Responsibilities

With age comes more chores and duties. You might help at home or take care of a pet. Being older means you can make more decisions by yourself, which is exciting!

Friendships

As you grow, friendships can change. You might make new friends or find new hobbies to share. It’s fun to make memories with friends as you all get older together.

250 Words Essay on Getting Older

What does getting older mean.

Getting older is something that happens to everyone. It is the process of growing up or aging. As time passes, children become teenagers, teenagers turn into adults, and adults grow into old age. This journey is natural and part of life.

Changes in Our Bodies

When people get older, their bodies change. Kids grow taller and stronger. Adults might find they can’t run as fast or jump as high as they used to. Older people sometimes have gray hair and may need glasses to read. These changes are normal and happen to everyone.

Learning and Wisdom

With each year, people learn new things. They go to school, make friends, and have different experiences. Getting older means you have more time to learn from mistakes and understand the world better. Older people often know a lot because they have lived through many things.

Responsibilities Grow

As you get older, you have more jobs to do. A young child might only need to pick up toys, but a teenager might have to do homework and help around the house. Adults have even more to do, like working and taking care of their families.

Celebrating Birthdays

One fun part of getting older is celebrating birthdays. Each birthday is special because it marks another year of life. It’s a time to be with friends and family, eat cake, and think about all the good things that happened in the past year.

Getting older is an adventure. It can be exciting to see how you change and what you can learn as the years go by. Everyone gets older, and it’s something to be proud of because it means you’re growing and becoming wiser.

500 Words Essay on Getting Older

What does it mean to get older.

When we talk about getting older, we mean the process of changing as time passes. For humans, this means growing up from a baby to a child, then into a teenager, and finally into an adult. With each year, we celebrate a birthday which marks us being one year older. As we grow, our bodies and minds change in many ways.

Physical Changes

One of the first things we notice as we get older is how our bodies change. Children grow taller, their voices might change, and they start to look more like grown-ups. Adults might notice that they do not move as quickly as they used to or that their hair starts to turn gray. These changes are a natural part of life, and they happen to everyone.

Learning and Knowledge

Getting older is not just about physical changes. It’s also about learning and gaining knowledge. When kids start school, they learn about letters, numbers, and how to make friends. As they get older, they learn more complex things in school, like history and science. Adults continue to learn, too, by gaining skills at work or learning from life’s experiences.

With each year, we get more responsibilities. Kids might start with simple tasks like cleaning their room or feeding a pet. As they grow, they might be responsible for doing homework or helping out more at home. Adults have even bigger responsibilities, like taking care of their families or paying bills.

Emotions and Relationships

As people get older, they also learn more about their feelings and relationships. Young children might feel happy or sad but not understand why. Teenagers begin to experience more complex emotions and learn about friendships and maybe even love. Adults have many different types of relationships with family, friends, and coworkers, and they learn how to manage their emotions in all these situations.

Health and Taking Care

Getting older means we have to start taking better care of ourselves. Kids might learn to brush their teeth and wash their hands to stay healthy. As we become adults, we learn that we need to eat the right foods, exercise, and go to the doctor to keep our bodies strong. Taking care of our health is important at every age.

Wisdom and Making Choices

One of the best parts about getting older is becoming wiser. Wisdom means having good judgment and making smart choices. Kids might learn this by deciding who to be friends with or how to spend their allowance. Adults use their wisdom to make bigger decisions, like buying a house or choosing a job.

Getting older is a journey that everyone goes on. It’s about growing up, changing, and learning new things. Even though it can sometimes be scary to think about all the changes, it’s also exciting. Every birthday is a chance to celebrate how much we’ve grown and all the things we’ve learned. So, getting older is not just about the number of candles on your cake; it’s about the adventures you’ve had and the ones that are still to come.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

• Essay on Ghana
• Essay on Ghost
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Why We Can’t Tell the Truth About Aging

By Arthur Krystal

In days of old, when most people didn’t live to be old, there were very few notable works about old age, and those were penned by writers who were themselves not very old. Chaucer was around fifty when “ The Merchant’s Tale ” was conceived; Shakespeare either forty-one or forty-two when he wrote “ King Lear ,” Swift fifty-five or so when gleefully depicting the immortal but ailing Struldbruggs, and Tennyson a mere twenty-four when he began “Tithonus” and completed “Ulysses,” his great anthem to an aging but “hungry heart.”

One might think that forty was not so young in Shakespeare’s day, but if you survived birth, infections, wars, and pestilence you stood a decent chance of reaching an advanced age no matter when you were born. Average life expectancy was indeed a sorry number for the greater part of history (for Americans born as late as 1900, it wasn’t even fifty), which may be one reason that people didn’t write books about aging: there weren’t enough old folks around to sample them. But now that more people on the planet are over sixty-five than under five, an army of readers stands waiting to learn what old age has in store.

Reading through a recent spate of books that deal with aging, one might forget that, half a century ago, the elderly were, as V. S. Pritchett noted in his 1964 introduction to Muriel Spark’s novel “ Memento Mori ,” “the great suppressed and censored subject of contemporary society, the one we do not care to face.” Not only are we facing it today; we’re also putting the best face on it that we possibly can. Our senior years are evidently a time to celebrate ourselves and the wonderful things to come: travelling, volunteering, canoodling, acquiring new skills, and so on. No one, it seems, wants to disparage old age. Nora Ephron’s “ I Feel Bad About My Neck ” tries, but is too wittily mournful to have real angst. Instead, we get such cheerful tidings as Mary Pipher’s “ Women Rowing North: Navigating Life’s Currents and Flourishing as We Age ,” Marc E. Agronin’s “ The End of Old Age: Living a Longer, More Purposeful Life ,” Alan D. Castel’s “ Better with Age: The Psychology of Successful Aging ,” Ashton Applewhite’s “ This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism ,” and Carl Honoré’s “ Bolder: Making the Most of Our Longer Lives ”—five chatty accounts meant to reassure us that getting old just means that we have to work harder at staying young.

Pipher is a clinical psychologist who is attentive to women over sixty, whose minds and bodies, she asserts, are steadily being devalued. She is sometimes tiresomely trite, urging women to “conceptualize all experiences in positive ways,” but invariably sympathetic. Agronin, described perhaps confusingly as “a geriatric psychiatrist” (he’s in his mid-fifties), believes that aging not only “brings strength” but is also “the most profound thing we accomplish in life.” Castel, a professor of psychology at U.C.L.A., believes in “successful aging” and seeks to show us how it can be achieved. And Applewhite, who calls herself an “author and activist,” doesn’t just inveigh against stereotypes; she wants to nuke them, replacing terms like “seniors” and “the elderly” with “olders.” Olders, she believes, can get down with the best of them. Retirement homes “are hotbeds of lust and romance,” she writes. “Sex and arousal do change, but often for the better.” Could be, though I’ve never heard anyone testify to this. Perhaps the epicurean philosopher Rodney Dangerfield (who died a month short of his eighty-third birthday), having studied the relationship between sexuality and longevity, said it best: “I’m at the age where food has taken the place of sex in my life. In fact, I’ve just had a mirror put over my kitchen table.”

Applewhite makes an appearance in Honoré’s book. She tells Honoré, a Canadian journalist who is now fifty-one, that aging is “like falling in love or motherhood.” Honoré reminds us that “history is full of folks smashing it in later life.” Smashers include Sophocles, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Bach, and Edison, who filed patents into his eighties. Perhaps because Honoré isn’t an American, he omits Satchel Paige, who pitched in the majors until he was fifty-nine. Like Applewhite, who claims that the older brain works “in a more synchronized way,” Honoré contends that aging may “alter the structure of the brain in ways that boost creativity.”

These authors aren’t blind to the perils of aging; they just prefer to see the upside. All maintain that seniors are more comfortable in their own skins, experiencing, Applewhite says, “less social anxiety, and fewer social phobias.” There’s some evidence for this. The connection between happiness and aging—following the success of books like Jonathan Rauch’s “ The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 ” and John Leland’s “ Happiness Is a Choice You Make: Lessons from a Year Among the Oldest Old ,” both published last year—has very nearly come to be accepted as fact. According to a 2011 Gallup survey, happiness follows the U-shaped curve first proposed in a 2008 study by the economists David Blanchflower and Andrew Oswald. They found that people’s sense of well-being was highest in childhood and old age, with a perceptible dip around midlife.

Lately, however, the curve has invited skepticism. Apparently, its trajectory holds true mainly in countries where the median wage is high and people tend to live longer or, alternatively, where the poor feel resentment more keenly during middle age and don’t mind saying so. But there may be a simpler explanation: perhaps the people who participate in such surveys are those whose lives tend to follow the curve, while people who feel miserable at seventy or eighty, whose ennui is offset only by brooding over unrealized expectations, don’t even bother to open such questionnaires.

One strategy of these books is to emphasize that aging is natural and therefore good, an idea that harks back to Plato, who lived to be around eighty and thought philosophy best suited to men of more mature years (women, no matter their age, could not think metaphysically). His most famous student, Aristotle, had a different opinion; his “ Ars Rhetorica ” contains long passages denouncing old men as miserly, cowardly, cynical, loquacious, and temperamentally chilly. (Aristotle thought that the body lost heat as it aged.) These gruff views were formed during the first part of Aristotle’s life, and we don’t know if they changed before he died, at the age of sixty-two. The nature-is-always-right argument found its most eloquent spokesperson in the Roman statesman Cicero, who was sixty-two when he wrote “De Senectute,” liberally translated as “ How to Grow Old ,” a valiant performance that both John Adams (dead at ninety) and Benjamin Franklin (dead at eighty-four) thought highly of.

Montaigne took a more measured view. Writing around 1580, he considered the end of a long life to be “rare, extraordinary, and singular . . . ’tis the last and extremest sort of dying: and the more remote, the less to be hoped for.” Montaigne, who never reached sixty, might have changed his mind upon learning that, in the twenty-first century, people routinely live into their seventies and eighties. But I suspect that he’d still say, “Whoever saw old age, that did not applaud the past, and condemn the present times?” No happiness curve for him.

There is, of course, a chance that you may be happier at eighty than you were at twenty or forty, but you’re going to feel much worse. I know this because two recent books provide a sobering look at what happens to the human body as the years pile up. Elizabeth Blackburn and Elissa Epel’s “ The Telomere Effect: Living Younger, Healthier, Longer ” and Sue Armstrong’s “ Borrowed Time: The Science of How and Why We Age ” describe what is essentially a messy business. Armstrong, a British science and health writer, presents, in crack Michael Lewis style, the high points of aging research along with capsule biographies of the main players, while Blackburn, one of three recipients of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Physiology, focusses on the shortening of telomeres, those tiny aglets of DNA attached to our chromosomes, whose length is a measure of cellular health. Basically, most cells divide and replicate some fifty-plus times before becoming senescent. Not nearly as inactive as the name suggests, senescent cells contribute to chronic inflammation and interfere with protective collagens. Meanwhile, telomeres shorten with each cell division, even as life style affects the degree of shrinkage—data now suggest that “married people, or people living with a partner, have longer telomeres.”

Walt Whitman, who never married, made it to seventy-two, and offered a lyric case for aging. “ YOUTH , large, lusty, loving—youth full of grace, force, fascination,” he intoned. “Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?” It’s pretty to think so, but the biology suggests otherwise. The so-called epigenetic clock shows our DNA getting gummed up, age-related mitochondrial mutations reducing the cells’ ability to generate energy, and our immune system slowly growing less efficient. Bones weaken, eyes strain, hearts flag. Bladders empty too often, bowels not often enough, and toxic proteins build up in the brain to form the plaque and the spaghetti-like tangles that are associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Not surprisingly, sixty-eight per cent of Medicare beneficiaries today have multiple chronic conditions. Not a lot of grace, force, or fascination in that.

In short, the optimistic narrative of pro-aging writers doesn’t line up with the dark story told by the human body. But maybe that’s not the point. “There is only one solution if old age is not to be an absurd parody of our former life,” Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her expansive 1970 study “The Coming of Age,” “and that is to go on pursuing ends that give our existence a meaning—devotion to individuals, to groups, or to causes—social, political, intellectual, or creative work.” But such meaning is not easily gained. In 1975, Robert Neil Butler, who had previously coined the term “ageism,” published “Why Survive? Being Old in America,” a Pulitzer Prize-winning study of society’s dereliction toward the nation’s aging population. “For many elderly Americans old age is a tragedy, a period of quiet despair, deprivation, desolation and muted rage,” he concluded.

Four years later, the British journalist Ronald Blythe, who must be one of the few living writers to have spoken to the last Victorians (he’s now just shy of ninety-seven), had a more sanguine perspective. His “ The View in Winter ,” containing oral histories of men and women at the end of their lives, is a lovely, sometimes personal, sometimes scholarly testament that reaches “no single conclusion. . . . Old age is full of death and full of life. It is a tolerable achievement and it is a disaster. It transcends desire and it taunts it. It is long enough and it is far from being long enough.” Some years after that, the great Chicago radio host Studs Terkel, who died at ninety-six, issued an American version of Blythe’s wintry landscape; in “Coming of Age” (1995), Terkel interrogated seventy-four “graybeards” (men and women over the age of seventy) for their thoughts on aging, politics, and the American way of life.

Now that we’re living longer, we have the time to write books about living longer—so many, in fact, that the Canadian critic Constance Rooke, in 1992, coined the term “Vollendungsroman,” a somewhat awkward complement to “Bildungsroman,” to describe novels about the end of life, such as Barbara Pym’s “ Quartet in Autumn ,” Kingsley Amis’s “ The Old Devils ,” and Wallace Stegner’s “ The Spectator Bird .” Since then, plenty of elderly protagonists have shown up in novels by Louis Begley (“ About Schmidt ”), Sue Miller (“ The Distinguished Guest ”), Saul Bellow (“ Ravelstein ”), Philip Roth (“ Everyman ”), and Margaret Drabble (“ The Dark Flood Rises ”). The realm of nonfiction has more than kept pace. Today, there’s a Web site that lists the top fifty books on aging, which, alas, omits William Ian Miller’s eccentric “ Losing It: In Which an Aging Professor Laments His Shrinking Brain ”(2011); Lynne Segal’s judicious but tough-minded “ Out of Time: The Pleasures and the Perils of Ageing ” (2013); and Martha C. Nussbaum and Saul Levmore’s smart, provocative “A ging Thoughtfully: Conversations About Retirement, Romance, Wrinkles, & Regret ” (2017), in which a philosopher and a law professor discuss everything from “Lear” to the transmission of assets. And, as was bound to happen, gerontology meets the Internet in “ Aging and the Digital Life Course ,” a collection of essays edited by David Prendergast and Chiara Garattini (2017). The library on old age has grown so voluminous that the fifty million Americans over the age of sixty-five could spend the rest of their lives reading such books, even as lusty retirees and power-lifting septuagenarians turn out new ones.

The most recent grand philosophical overview of aging is also by a woman, and lighting upon Helen Small’s “ The Long Life ” (2007) is like entering the University of Old Age after matriculating at a perfectly good college. Small, an Oxford don (and just forty-two when the book came out), wants to integrate old age into how we think about life. Pondering what it means to be someone who has completed a life cycle that Montaigne thought unnatural, she considers old age to be “connected into larger philosophical considerations,” whose depiction, whether literary or scientific, both drives and reflects emotional and ethical attitudes. And, echoing the philosopher Bernard Williams, she suggests that our lives accrue meaning over time, and therefore the story of the self is not complete until it experiences old age—the stage of life that helps us grasp who we are and what our life has meant.

Not everyone wants to find out if Small’s equation between old age and self-knowledge holds up. In 2014, The Atlantic ran an essay by the oncologist and bioethicist Ezekiel J. Emanuel, then fifty-seven, whose title alone, “ Why I Hope to Die at 75 ,” caused uneasy shuffling among seventy-year-olds. Emanuel believes that, by the time he hits this milestone, he will have lived a full life. He argues that by seventy-five “creativity, originality, and productivity are pretty much gone for the vast, vast majority of us.” Unlike Honoré and Applewhite, Emanuel thinks that “it is difficult, if not impossible, to generate new, creative thoughts, because we don’t develop a new set of neural connections that can supersede the existing network.” Although he doesn’t plan on suicide, he won’t actively prolong his life: no more cancer-screening tests (colonoscopies and the like); no pacemaker or stents. He wants to get out while the getting is good.

It’s an unselfish outlook, but not quite credible to unevolved people like me. Having entered my seventies, I don’t care that I may not have much to contribute after I’m seventy-five. I’m not sure I’ll have had that much to contribute before turning seventy-five. Also, Emanuel seems to be talking about artists, intellectuals, and scientists who will be pained by the prospect that their brain power and creativity may ebb in their twilight years, and not about your average working stiff who, after years of toiling in factories or offices, may want to spend more time golfing or reading books about golf. A grudging admiration for the good doctor ultimately gives way to disappointment when he reserves the right to change his mind, thereby confirming Montaigne’s gloomy projection that “our desires incessantly grow young again; we are always re-beginning to live.”

Let’s grant that there are as many ways to grow old as there are people going about it, especially since more of us keep chugging along despite our aches and ailments. “If I’d known I was going to live this long,” said Mickey Mantle (or possibly Mae West or Eubie Blake), “I would have taken better care of myself.” Mantle was only sixty-three when he died, but the truth is that many of us are going to be physically better off at eighty than Shakespeare’s Jaques could have imagined— avec teeth, avec sight, and avec hearing (which is to say: dental implants, glasses, and hearing aids). A long life is a gift. But I’m not sure we’re going to be grateful for it.

Normal aging is bad enough, but things become dire if dementia develops, the chances of which double every five years past the age of sixty-five. Applewhite, however, citing recent research, no longer thinks that dementia is “inevitable, or even likely.” May she live long and prosper, but, for those of us who have cared for spouses or parents with dementia, it’s not always a simple matter to know on whom the burden falls the heaviest. (One in three caregivers is sixty-five or older.)

Obviously, I’m not a candidate for the Old Person’s Hall of Fame. In fact, I plan to be a tattered coat upon a stick, nervously awaiting the second oblivion, which I’m reasonably certain will not have the same outcome as the first. Nonetheless, I like to think that I have some objectivity about what it’s like to grow old. My father lived to be almost a hundred and three, and most of my friends are now in their seventies. It may be risky to impugn the worthiness of old age, but I’ll take my cane to anyone who tries to stop me. At the moment, we seem to be compensating for past transgressions: far from devaluing old age, we assign it value it may not possess. Yes, we should live as long as possible, barring illness and infirmity, but, when it comes to the depredations of age, let’s not lose candor along with muscle tone. The goal, you could say, is to live long enough to think: I’ve lived long enough.

One would, of course, like to approach old age with grace and fortitude, but old age makes it difficult. Those who feel that it’s a welcome respite from the passions, anxieties, and troubles of youth or middle age are either very lucky or toweringly reasonable. Why rail against the inevitable—what good will it do? None at all. Complaining is both pointless and unseemly. Existence itself may be pointless and unseemly. No wonder we wonder at the meaning of it all. “At first we want life to be romantic; later, to be bearable; finally, to be understandable,” Louise Bogan wrote. Professor Small would agree, and though I am a fan of her book, I have my doubts about whether the piling on of years really does add to our understanding of life. Doesn’t Regan say of her raging royal father, “Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself”? The years may broaden experience and tint perspective, but is wisdom or contentment certain to follow?

A contented old age probably depends on what we were like before we became old. Vain, self-centered people will likely find aging less tolerable than those who seek meaning in life by helping others. And those fortunate enough to have lived a full and productive life may exit without undue regret. But if you’re someone who—oh, for the sake of argument—is unpleasantly surprised that people in their forties or fifties give you a seat on the bus, or that your doctors are forty years younger than you are, you just might resent time’s insistent drumbeat. Sure, there’s life in the old boy yet, but certain restrictions apply. The body—tired, aching, shrinking—now quite often embarrasses us. Many older men have to pee right after they pee, and many older women pee whenever they sneeze. Pipher and company might simply say “Gesundheit” and urge us on. Life, they insist, doesn’t necessarily get worse after seventy or eighty. But it does, you know. I don’t care how many seniors are loosening their bedsprings every night; something is missing.

It’s not just energy or sexual prowess but the thrill of anticipation. Even if you’re single, can you ever feel again the rush of excitement that comes with the first brush of the lips, the first moment when clothes drop to the floor? Who the hell wants to tear his or her clothes off at seventy-five? Now we dim the lights and fold our slacks and hope we don’t look too soft, too wrinkled, too old. Yes, mature love allows for physical imperfections, but wouldn’t we rather be desired for our beauty than forgiven for our flaws? These may seem like shallow regrets, and yet the loss of pleasure in one’s own body, the loss of pleasure in knowing that one’s body pleases others, is a real one.

I can already hear the objections: If my children are grown and happy; if my grandchildren light up when they see me; if I’m healthy and financially secure; if I’m reasonably satisfied with what I’ve accomplished; if I feel more comfortable now that I no longer have to prove myself—why, then, the loss of youth is a fair trade-off. Those are a lot of “if”s, but never mind. We should all make peace with aging. And so my hat is off to Dr. Oliver Sacks , who chose to regard old age as “a time of leisure and freedom, freed from the factitious urgencies of earlier days, free to explore whatever I wish, and to bind the thoughts and feelings of a lifetime together.” At eighty-two, he rediscovered the joy of gefilte fish, which, as he noted, would usher him out of life as it had ushered him into it.

“No wise man ever wished to be younger,” Swift asserted, never having met me. But this doesn’t mean that we have to see old age as something other than what it is. It may complete us, but in doing so it defeats us. “Life is slow dying,” Philip Larkin wrote before he stopped dying, at sixty-three—a truth that young people, who are too busy living, cavalierly ignore. Should it give them pause, they’ll discover that just about every book on the subject advocates a “positive” attitude toward aging in order to maintain a sense of satisfaction and to achieve a measure of wisdom. And yet it seems to me that a person can be both wise and unhappy, wise and regretful, and even wise and dubious about the wisdom of growing old.

When Socrates declared that philosophy is the practice of dying, he was saying that thought itself is shaped by mortality, and it’s because our existence is limited that we’re able to think past those limits. Time has us in its grip, and so we devise stories of an afterlife in which we exist unshackled by days and years and the decay they represent. But where does that get us, beyond the vague suspicion that immortality—at least in the shape of the vengeful Yahweh or the spiteful Greek and Roman gods—is no guarantee of wisdom? Then again, if you’re the sort of person who sees the glass as one-eighth full rather than seven-eighths empty, you might not worry about such matters. Instead, you’ll greet each new day with gratitude, despite coughing up phlegm and tossing down a dozen pills.

But what do I know? I’m just one person, who at seventy-one doesn’t feel as good as he did at sixty-one, and who is fairly certain that he’s going to feel even worse at eighty-one. I simply know what men and women have always known: “One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever.” If only the writer had stopped there. Unfortunately, he went on to add, “In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. . . . The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise? This too is meaningless.” No young person could have written that. ♦

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By Helen Shaw

By Nathan Heller

How to Be Happy Growing Older

Your future will probably be better than your past.

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N ext to one’s birthday, the passing of the calendar year induces us to reflect on the march of time in our life. This is not a welcome subject for many—which is perhaps why a lot of people simply redefine old age virtually out of existence. When Americans were asked in 2009 what “being old” means, the most popular response was turning 85. Yet the average life span in the United States in 2022 was only 76. Apparently, then, the average American dies nine years before getting old.

The impulse to define old age as “older than I am now” is not surprising, given all the ways our culture worships youth—its beauty, vitality, and entrepreneurial energy—and offers us any number of options for spending time and money to stop or slow down the clock of aging. And as if the adulation of youth weren’t enough, the stigmatization of seniors is always at hand, through overt discrimination, ageist stereotyping, and crass “OK Boomer”–style contempt.

Read: Clearing the body’s retired cells slows aging and extends life

This can make the inevitable passage of years into a grim prospect for a person. But it shouldn’t have to mean that. True, getting old brings visible signs of physical decline, and may rule out some activities and opportunities. But in other ways, aging can involve growth and improvement—of character, perspective, and overall happiness. In a real sense, we should start looking forward to being old.

L et’s start with how you will feel when you are old. By this, I don’t mean whether your back will hurt more (it almost certainly will), but rather the balance between your positive and negative moods as you age. The answer is probably better than you feel now .

As readers of this column may know, positive and negative affect (mood) seem to operate independently of each other: You can have a lot or a little of either or both. “High affect” people (your happiness columnist included) score above average on both positive and negative mood levels; “low affect” people score less on both. No matter which type you start out as, you can expect your affect levels to change in a desirable direction over the course of your life. According to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , both men and women tend to see an increase in positive affect as they get older (women, in particular, see a greater and accelerating increase). On average, negative affect does not change for women predictably with age, but it decreases for aging men (with the caveat that the decrease is more pronounced for married men; for unmarried men, negative affect is higher at every stage of life).

Many theories have been advanced for why affect balance improves as we age. A 2013 review of research reveals that older people develop at least three distinct emotional skills: They react less to negative situations, they are better at ignoring irrelevant negative stimuli than they were when younger, and they remember more positive than negative information. This is almost like a superpower many older people have, that they know negative emotions won’t last so they get a head start on feeling good by consciously disregarding bad feelings as they arise.

Read: Making aging positive

As we age, our personality traits change as well. Here again, the news is mostly good. Personality is generally separated by psychologists into five parts: openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. (Extroversion is sometimes also separated into the subcategories of social vitality, or gregariousness, and social dominance, or assertiveness.) In 2008, two researchers summarized in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science a voluminous literature on how these dimensions of personality change as we move from childhood to old age. Some of the changes are not necessarily either good or bad. For example, people tend to become less gregarious after their mid-50s; they become more assertive from adolescence through their mid-30s and stay at this higher level; their openness to experience rises into early adulthood, stabilizes, and falls after their mid-50s.

Other changes are unambiguously positive. Agreeableness tends to rise throughout adulthood, probably as we see its benefits and establish more emotional equanimity. Neuroticism usually falls , at least until one’s late 60s. And conscientiousness rises continuously. If you follow the typical development, you can expect to be nicer and kinder, and less depressed and anxious, when you are old. For the most part, Boomers really are OK.

Not surprisingly, then, self-esteem tends to rise as people move through adulthood, all the way to age 60. It stays at a high level until about 70, then slightly declines. (This last downward section could be connected to the accumulating death toll of elderly friends and spouses. Even so, age 80 may be better than 30, measured in average affect balance.)

Read: How happiness changes with age

Finally, people also tend to become less envious with age, especially of success in education, social standing, looks, and romance. They do get slightly more envious of money—which makes sense: No one expects to be ravishing at 90, but you can hope to have a bigger condo in Boca Raton.

T he good news about aging is that if we simply leave things to the passage of time, life will probably get better for us. But we can do more than just wait around to get old. We can lean into the natural improvements and manage any trends we don’t like.

Those natural strengths as we get old—agreeableness, conscientiousness, mental health, and positive affect—we can think of as emerging talents to develop, just how we might once have thought of our athletic ability when we were growing up. If you’re a gifted basketball player at 12, practicing a lot will pay off when you are 18. Similarly, if you consciously practice being nice, kind, and cheerful when younger, you can truly excel at these traits when you’re old.

I have seen this phenomenon in people close to me who, in late middle age, made a choice to practice character virtues that enhanced life for others. Sure enough, in old age they were absolute superstars of goodness, remembered as such after death.

Start each day by imagining the person you want to be as the years go by: not ruminating on grievances, not wasting time being grumpy, and sharing words of kindness and encouragement with whomever you come across. Notice how this imagined version of yourself makes you feel. The idea is to have this vision become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Then, every night, think about ways you can be better still in these areas the next day.

Your weaknesses as you age are more subjective and a matter of personal judgment. For example, is a reduced openness to new experiences good, bad, or neutral? For me, I see this as a weakness, and as something I want to manage. Others may see staying open to new things as less important for themselves, but have another trait they would like to change. For example, say you’re a naturally reticent person who doesn’t want to see introversion become more dominant as you age. Is that something you can change? The answer is probably yes .

Read: Finding happiness in middle age

Research from 2015 in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that when people set out to alter their personality traits —and recorded their daily behavior—they were able to do so. For instance, people who wanted to be more extroverted and kept a diary record of social behavior made progress in modifying their personality over the four months of the study.

As with accentuating the positive, the secret to adjusting personality traits is to change your behavior in explicit and conscious ways. This is being metacognitive , as we say in the trade. In the morning, imagine yourself acting the way you want to act; at night, take stock in a nonjudgmental spirit of how far you succeeded in achieving that aim, and then make fresh resolutions for the next day. The point is to see your personality as a project perpetually in progress—so always be working on it.

Arthur C. Brooks: The seven habits that lead to happiness in old age

Y ou might be pleased to get all this good news about how you can be happy about getting older, but still have one nagging question: If life improves in old age, why do we work so steadfastly to spoil our enjoyment of life in the present with our dread of aging and our panicked efforts to stave it off? A useful answer is that in many cultures, people don’t do these things; in other parts of the world, the perception of aging is positive compared with in the West. According to cross-cultural research, this more positive attitude is especially true in countries such as China, India, Malaysia, Uganda, and Iran. These are societies that traditionally value the wisdom of older people, and appreciate the perspective they bring.

And therein lies the last lesson to help you prepare for your golden years: Start appreciating seniors more for their natural gifts. The practice of seeing yourself valuing old people will reprogram the way you think and feel about your own aging. That will allay your fears, and free you up to get on with the important business of becoming happier.

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Getting Older Isn’t the End—So Why Do We Treat It Like It Is?

The year I turned 30, it felt like the world was on fire. And I don’t mean my world, specifically—I marked my transition from youth to (some version of) full-fledged adulthood in the middle of lockdown during a global pandemic. At the moment, as I baked myself some chocolate raspberry cupcakes, poured a glass of wine, and flipped on my favorite comfort movie, I can’t say I was thinking much of the transition. In the middle of all the tragedy and stress, it felt as though time itself had stopped.

Of course, it had not. And as restrictions began to lift and the world began to slowly open itself up, all the anxieties of the “before times” began to creep their way in. And that included anxieties around aging. 

I can’t say there were any specific moments during my 30th year that sparked the anxieties, apart from your run-of-the-mill “should I freeze my eggs?!” late-night doom scrolling–inspired panic. But not too long before my own 32nd birthday, a post from Jezebel hit my feed that (inadvertently) brought those fears bubbling right to the surface. 

Julia Fox, she of Uncut Gems and low-rise jeans fame, had hit the red carpet with gray hair as a “love letter to getting older.” The post that arrived in my feed questioned, not unfairly, if a hot 32-year-old was the person to be delivering this message. 

To be clear: The author of the Jezebel article is right. In so far as any age can be objectively considered “old,” 32 wouldn’t be it. The average American woman lives to be 79 years old , making a 32-year-old decidedly on the younger side of the middle. At 32 years old, one still has at least twice as many years ahead as one does behind. And to be fair, in the full article , the author does acknowledge that women face constant pressures to look like they’re in their early 20s, even when they aren’t.

But, in our cultural consciousness, there’s a pretty convincing argument to be made that—for women, at least—32 is middle-aged for cultural relevance; for visibility; and for, well, hotness. According to an analysis by Time magazine, female actors reach their career highs at 30 years old, while their male counterparts reach theirs at 46. Vulture noted how, in their 20s, actresses like Jennifer Lawrence and Emma Stone were consistently paired with actors in their mid-to-late 30s (if not older). And “were” is the operative word here; J.Law and Emma Stone are appearing on our screens far less frequently since turning 30, making way for a new crop of 20-something ingenues.

And this obsession with youth isn’t limited to the top tax brackets. The 2022 ASPS Insights and Trends Report illustrated this in myriad ways—including the finding that the top reason people reported for seeking cosmetic procedures was to “feel refreshed/look younger after aging from pandemic stress.” Patients in the 31- to 45-year-old group were the most likely to receive Botulinum Toxin Type A, while patients over 45 were most likely to request facelifts and eyelid surgery. I’d argue that even liposuction—another procedure most popular with those in their 30s or early 40s—falls into this category. As we hit middle age, we gain an average of one to two pounds per year ; while people exist in a variety of sizes at any age, in western society, a thinner body reads as a younger body.

If the Julia Fox post triggered my anxieties around aging, a platform that emerged during the pandemic brought them into focus. TikTok, which is among the “youngest” social media platforms (according to one study , a whopping 70 percent of users are under 24), is also a wonderful app to pull up if you ever want to feel like the crypt keeper for having been around when celebrities had BlackBerrys. And I’m far from alone in recognizing the way that older users are perceived on the platform .

But ultimately, we’re all going to age–if we’re so lucky. The TikTok user @heymisskelsey noted this in a post addressing the ageism she had seen and experienced on the app. “Honestly, I don’t get offended when I hear [ageist comments]. I get concerned,” she says . “Because making fun of somebody for something you will inevitably experience is a fool’s errand in my opinion.”

This is not to say that Gen Z is remarkably more ageist than the generations that came before them; in 1965, a 22-year-old Paul McCartney referred to 31-year-old Jayne Mansfield as an “ old bag .”

Which, I think, is might add another layer of anxieties about aging for millennials: While someone our chronological age, say, 58 years ago would have almost certainly been settled into a life of marriage, children, and a steady job, that increasingly isn’t the case . Job security, home ownership, and starting a family have long been the hallmarks of adulthood—if you haven’t hit some, or any, of those benchmarks, it makes sense that maybe you don’t identify with having transitioned into another stage of life. 

And ultimately, another stage of life is exactly what it is: Because even if 32 isn’t old, “old” shouldn’t be a dirty word. I find that with each year, I become more comfortable with who I am. Keeping up with the trends is less of an organic part of my existence, but I also feel much more self-assured when it comes to my own style. And while there are some age-related things that are completely out of one’s control–changes in health, fertility, etc.—ironically, I find myself less stressed about meeting some imagined timeline or five-year plan. Everyone is on their own journey, one often dotted with many unexpected detours, roadblocks, and exit and entrance ramps.

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What is So Good About Growing Old

Forget about senior moments. The great news is that researchers are discovering some surprising advantages of aging

Helen Fields

Even as certain mental skills decline with age—what was that guy’s name again?—scientists are finding the mind gets sharper at a number of vitally important abilities. In a University of Illinois study, older air traffic controllers excelled at their cognitively taxing jobs, despite some losses in short-term memory and visual spatial processing. How so? They were expert at navigating, juggling multiple aircraft simultaneously and avoiding collisions.

People also learn how to deal with social conflicts more effectively. For a 2010 study, researchers at the University of Michigan presented “Dear Abby” letters to 200 people and asked what advice they would give. Subjects in their 60s were better than younger ones at imagining different points of view, thinking of multiple resolutions and suggesting compromises.

It turns out that managing emotions is a skill in itself, one that takes many of us decades to master. For a study published this year, German researchers had people play a gambling game meant to induce regret. Unlike 20-somethings, those in their 60s didn’t agonize over losing, and they were less likely to try to redeem their loss by later taking big risks.

These social skills may bring huge benefits. In 2010, researchers at Stony Brook University analyzed a telephone survey of hundreds of thousands of Americans and found that people over 50 were happier overall, with anger declining steadily from the 20s through the 70s and stress falling off a cliff in the 50s.

This may be news to people who equate being old with being sad and alone, but it fits with a body of work by Laura Carstensen, a psychologist at Stanford. She led a study that followed people ages 18 to 94 for a decade and found that they got happier and their emotions bounced around less. Such studies reveal that negative emotions such as sadness, anger and fear become less pronounced than in our drama-filled younger years.

Cornell sociologist Karl Pillemer and co-workers interviewed about 1,200 older people for the book 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest American s. “Many people said something along these lines: ‘I wish I’d learned to enjoy life on a daily basis and enjoy the moment when I was in my 30s instead of my 60s,’” he says. Elderly interviewees are likely to “describe the last five or ten years as the happiest years of their lives.”

“We have a seriously negative stereotype of the 70s and beyond,” says Pillemer, “and that stereotype is typically incorrect.”

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178 Interesting Topics in Aging

🏆 best psychology of aging research topics, 👍 good essay topics on aging, ⭐ simple & easy gerontology topics, 📌 most interesting aging topics to write about, ❓ aging research topics and questions.

• The Aging Population Impacts on labour Impacts on healthcare Impacts on government spending The increase in the proportion of the people who are old leads to a decrease of the number of people who are within the working […]
• Aging as a Social Problem The social challenges of the old people are further worsened by the economic constrains, and labeling. Ageism is another social challenge and it refers to a situation where people look down upon the elderly people […] We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• The Concept of Aging Process The science dealing with the process of aging is termed ‘gerontology’ and this science tries to elucidate the factors and details of the process of aging.
• Anti-Aging Products: Pros and Cons While the subject on anti-aging products is politicized over time, the manufacturers of the products defend themselves by saying that the customers are informed, they understand the risks associated with anti-aging products, and they choose […]
• Generation Gap: Childhood, Adulthood, Old Age At the same period, the younger generation says about the impact of the modern tendencies, changes of the way of life that give an opportunity to claim that the younger generation is more advanced.
• The Aspect of Aging Ageism The old people, on the other hand, are so susceptible to ageism because old age is the last stage of life and that makes the elderly vulnerable to death.
• Old Age Phobia: Problems and Solutions Most of the countries of the world share the same view regarding the issue of the fear of aging. Thus, the perception of age is never well-received by the community and there is such a […]
• Adult Development and Aging But nowadays, the issue of adulthood is gradually becoming one of the most important because the borders between adolescence and adulthood are not fixed which leads to the mixture of generations, and to the process […]
• Physical Exercise Program Importance in Old Age As such, regular physical and mental exercise is integral in helping the aged people to boost their strength, confidence and intrinsic health.
• Personality, Cognition, and Physical State of Old Age This work is aimed at revealing my personal views on the aspects of personality, cognition, and physical state of old age and assessing the theoretical background that describes the relevant states and their prerequisites.
• Aging Services in Modern Society This project there is ensuring that the staffs are committed to caring for elderly people. There is a team that is responsible for research in this project.
• Successful and Unsuccessful Aging: My Grandmother’ Story She was a lady for as long as I remember her and maintained the lady’s habits till the end of her days.
• Aging Ethical Issues and Cultural Differences In other words, the biggest misconception that seems to have been accepted in society is the fact that the embryo is the standard to the right to life.
• The Aging Population’s Retirement Security There is a continuous increase in the aging population number, without any retirement security hence a need for a collective effort to ensure stability and dignity for the elderly population in the future.
• Global Issues: Addressing an Aging Population An important issue that is currently facing the world community is aging due to the increasing number of older people. Migration leaves the countries in which people are moving with a significant number of older […]
• Vital Signs: A Window Into Aging and Health However, it is always the nurse’s duty to assess vital signs and set up the proper follow-up in the event that irregularities are discovered.
• Aging in the United States and Japan Further, the physical health of aging in Japan is highly regarded, whereas, in the US, the aging is most are separated and left indoors. The US and Japan encourage the aging to spend most of […]
• Aging, Chronic Conditions, and End of Life Essentially, the quality of life of the dying person and those who are important to them is attempted to be improved by effective end-of-life care.
• Free Radical Theory Among Aging Theories According to the theory of mutation accumulation, genes useful in early human life are maintained by natural selection, in contrast to genes useful in old age.
• The Policies and Deficits Affecting Aging in the United States This paper discusses the policies and deficits affecting aging in the United States and the role of government in ensuring that they are protected.
• Visible and Invisible Aging Article by Clarke & Griffin The authors initially identified two possible approaches to the problem from different angles: the popularity of youth in society and the lack of respect for older people, and they outlined the inverse proportion of the […]
• Scientific Theories on Phenomenon of Old Age The social component of this issue becomes no less important, and the author, moving from social integration and issues of suicide among the elderly, begins to reveal in more detail the section on the dynamism […]
• Financial Stability in Old Age The financial and economic factors are among those aspects that put the aging population at risk of physical and mental complications and expose them to health inequalities.
• Aging: Subcategories, Longevity, and Human Services The middle-old subgroup often experiences chronic pain, deals with stressors correlating with the deaths of friends and spouses, and encounters balance problems.
• Aging Process in Relation to Abuse One category of the characteristics of the aging process are specific physiological changes, such as various neurological disorders, impaired cognition, memory loss, the loss of learning ability, and a decline in special senses.
• Small-Group Communication: Innovation in Aging A small group is essentially an assemblage of two or more individuals that communicate while engaging in certain events or an interconnected aim and can exercise correlation amongst each other. Every team member can acquire […]
• Aging Changes and Dealing With Them For example, immediate tasks such as the state of a cooked meal usually remain in the short-term memory and then vanish; deliberately learned math course sticks in the memory for a while, being an example […]
• Taste: Entry and Profits in an Aging Economy Now, I understand that taste is a more complicated category in the economy that features the concepts of utility and consumer inertia.
• Health Care Within Aging White Veterans With Dementia Since this condition is heavily linked with damage to the brain, these people should be addressed in a friendly manner to avoid misunderstanding.
• Applying Neural Stem Cells to Counteract Brain Aging Pluripotent stem cells, or PSCs, are the best candidates for in vitro generation and cultivation of neural stem cells. Neural stem cells: Origin, heterogeneity and regulation in the adult mammalian brain.
• Effects of Aging on the Integumentary and Musculoskeletal Systems The second part is a summary of the information available on the changes that occur in the integumentary system with age.
• Successful Aging and Its Key Constituents Therefore, aging is a stage of life, which can be as happy and prosperous as other phases of life. Thus, this research is pretty informative and contributes to people’s understanding of the peculiarities of successful […]
• Aging Population and Its Effect on the US Healthcare However, on the flip side, growth in the number of older adults in relation to the young population would also signify a reduction in the labor force and, consequently, a decline in national income.
• Researching of Theories of Aging Social isolation among the elderly in the US can be reduced through the application of the activity theory. This theory suggests that individuals enjoy old age by finding new activities to do to substitute the […]
• Colorado Springs: Aging Services Network The Colorado Department of Human Services is the highest department over CDAAS and provides the same services. The Long-Term Care Ombudsman Program focuses on a broader range of services, including recreational, and economic counseling, to […]
• Aging Services Network Map Evaluation Summit View Assisted Living is a home care service located in the Garwyn Oaks neighborhood of Baltimore. The area has a good selection of assisted living facilities for senior citizens who want to get more […]
• Aging: Concepts and Controversies An analysis of the college admission process reveals one challenge facing counselors: that there is a necessity of providing the certain measures to avoid the discrimination of the disabled.
• Perceptions of Aging Adults This paper sets out to explore the difference between grandparents and baby boomers; whether baby boomers are younger, energetic, or are similar; the differences in our perceptions of aging today versus 30 years ago, the […]
• Effects of Age and Aging on the Immune Response to Diseases Such as COVID-19 The purpose of this paper is to address the effects of age and aging on the immune response to diseases such as COVID-19.
• Aging Population Study by Christensen Kaare et al. The descriptive approach in the Aging Population: The Challenges Ahead, the article written by Christensen Kaare et al, systematically and accurately elaborates on life expectancy trends in developed nations.
• Aging and Beauty Standards: Overcoming Social Prejudice The ethical issue is that in an attempt to change one’s body and make it similar to those that are presented in the media and by stars, people lose their identities and opinions.
• Reflection Essay: Aging and Sugar I want to go on trips around the world with my family and engage in new challenges. In order to do that, now I should care about my health and economic welfare.
• Healthy Aging in the United Arab Emirates Report: This part highlights the current plan for aged care in the UAE, presupposing increasing investment in the sphere and attraction of private companies, communities’ preferences for aged care, resources provided by the UAE to […]
• Caring for the Elderly and Biological Process of Aging Robnett and Chop believe strongly that ‘a wider knowledge of the mechanisms that tend to affect the aging process can play a significant role towards identifying new interventions that have the potential to alter the […]
• Benefits of Exercises in the Aging Population Balance issues and falls are very frequent in the elderly, and they significantly contribute to the increased rates of institutionalization. This makes Tai Chi an important intervention in enhancing balance and reducing the risk of […]
• Aging as Social Problem in North American Society In the North American society, individuals attaining the age of sixty-five are expected to retire to pave way for the new generation to manage the economy. In other words, the project would have a number […]
• Person’s Aging Process and Media Impact As a result, the old are naturally the leaders of the society and are even expected to make the most consequential decisions that affect the entire society.
• Myth: The Aging Population Is to Blame for Uncontrollable The issue of aging of the population is very critical, especially because it becomes worrisome when the health expenses increase and policymakers left with a dilemma on what to focus on in addressing the situation.
• Aging and Oral Health Implications in Australia Consequently, parallel to the observation of AHMAC Steering Committee for National Planning for Oral Health, that those preserved teeth are predisposed to developing diseases of the mouth, and because of various influences of population aging, […]
• Aging Body and Sensory Changes and Adaptation From a critical perspective, it is evident that Joseph is proud of his life and the fact that he has left behind a legacy.
• The Science Behind Bacterial Aging A bacterium is one of the organisms that undergo asymmetric division of cells hence does not undergo aging. In this bacterium, it is evident that the DNA process stopped because the stalk cell turned out […]
• Aging Theory and Medication Adherence for Geriatric Patients The following will be the goals and objectives of the Practicum Experience in this course. Define the phrase ‘theory of aging’ Explain how the aging process can be altered.
• Aging Changes Explained Effects of aging on the nervous system lead to a reduction in the velocity of signal transmission due to varied effects on the nerve cells or on the neurotransmitter secretion.
• Mental Health and Wellness in Aging Population This research proposal will examine the aspects of wellness with regards to the dimensions of mental health and among the aged.
• Aging Population in the Western United States The older population in the western US is disproportionately compromised because the climate has a great impact on the health of older people, yet these older people’s adaptability is compromised.
• Impact of Aging on the Human Body The free radical theory has it that the radicals produced by body cells can also destroy them, and as a result, the aging of cells occurs.
• Human Growth Hormone: Finding a Remedy Against Aging The methods he used in this research and conclusions were documented in the New England journal of medicine on the 5th of July 1990.
• Aging: The Terms This authority is attributed to the authoritative role of the father and the grandfather in the presidency of the emotional and economical demands of their generation group.
• Experience of Aging in Indiana: Interviews Study The questions with the President of CICOA were more structures and had a formal nature, including questions such as the state of health service for the elderly, challenges in providing services, the plans for overcoming […]
• Aging Issues in Canada In denial, people deny the fact that they are in the situation they are in and mostly they say, “This cannot be happening, not to me”.
• The Impact of Culture on Aging: Psychological and Sociological Analysis Analyzing the impact of American culture on the process of aging, disease management and pain control, we should first identify the main features of American mentality.
• Neurogenetics Effects on Cognition in Aging Brains According to Wong et al, Alzheimer’s disease is usually associated with a mutation in three genes: the amyloid precursor protein gene and two presenilin genes.
• The Causes and Effects of Social Cognition and Aging The brain, as the most complex organ in a human’s body, is especially susceptible to drastic changes from a plethora of factors.
• Changes in the Aging Brain: Overview The changes the brain undergoes while aging weakens its functions and can result in the development of cognitive disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. According to Vandenbroucke, these deviations indicate the importance of the choroid plexus […]
• The Link Between Cognition and Aging Brain The problems of changes in the cognitive functions of the brain over time are one of the leading causes of depression, delirium, and dementia in older adults.
• Senior Centers and Places of Worship as Primary Active Aging Settings There is a variety of places that can accommodate the elderly or help to fulfill their needs for community interactions, and among these places are community settings and places of worship.
• Old Age Dependency Overview and Analysis This paper seeks to describe how the use of this metric can become an evidence-based approach for formulating new policies and frameworks to maximize the economic output of the elderly, engage them in productive activities, […]
• Interviews About the Realities of Aging However, inasmuch as he does not want to get to the point of needing specialized care, which is his greatest fear, he is aware of the reality and possibility of that time coming at some […]
• The Problem of Aging, and the Needs of Aging Employees The aim of this research is to investigate the significance of workplace design changes and altering concepts of project management careers as a result of aging.
• Demand for Health Care in the USA: Old Age The question therefore arises is that what determines the demand for health in the US. Therefore, he concludes that age is not a determining factor in the increase of health care expenses.
• Cognitive Aging in Humans and Animals The results of this experiment will likely be as follows: aged rats will need more time to find the food, and will not put the food in the same arm of the maze, and the […]
• The Great Down-Aging Syndrome: Why 40 Is the New 20 It has also been observed that the middle-aged people are fervent consumers of those products that are mainly used by the young. Not all middle-aged consumers are attracted to products that are meant for the […]
• Old Age and Coping Mechanisms In the case of the interviewee, the impact of attachment theory can be seen in how he is still being affected by the actions of his father many decades ago.
• Perspectives on Aging in the US The analysis of US trends influencing the growth of the population is to be performed through national, economical and regional trends development.
• Development Psychology: Aging Attitudes in Mass Media Considering the problem of attitudes towards aging in mass media, one can observe that the elderly population is having been viewed in a different manner if compared to the people of young age.
• Healthcare in the Middle East and the Aging Rates Among the Population The developing countries have lately been experiencing higher and faster rates of aging, thanks to a decline in the fertility rates of the population, in comparison to the developed countries.
• Psychology of Aging Analysis The regulation of social life can be a promising quality of life in later adulthood. Lifestyle factors have a tremendous effect on the quality of life and well-being in later years.
• Maccianti on Fiduciary Responsibility of an Aging Owner The framework used in the critique is to evaluate the options available regarding Michael and to attempt to trace the cause of the present problem for the purpose of possibly preventing a similar situation in […]
• Aging and Cultural Diversity: Ethical Dilemmas Indeed, however absurd it may sound at first, this reading is right in pointing out that aging and cultural diversity do relate to each other and form a single concept relative to the formation of […]
• Adulthood and Aging – Widower’s and Widow’s Syndrome According to the information on the site, studies have been carried out to compare the death rate for a group of widows/widowers to that of a control group.
• Adulthood and Aging. Intergenerational Relationships In a fast paced competitive world of a multiple of career options, traditional families are being replaced by nuclear families leading to fragmentation of the cohesive social structure.
• Adulthood and Aging. Family Contacts and Support In order to have a system support in old adulthood I will try as much as possible to embrace a firm union base with the immediate structures, people and the environment around me and through […]
• Healthy Musculoskeletal System and Aging Once we reach the age of 30, our bones stop growing and making new cells, and we are left to live the rest of our lives with the current condition of our bones.
• Theories of Aging and Health Promotion With the reduced rate of fertility, and the survival of a higher fraction of individuals up to older ages, the average figure of the individuals of or above the age of sixty-five years, “has been […]
• The Existential Problems of Aging Price, states that in the United States “the ratio of the population over 65 to the population 20 to 64 will rise by 85% between 2005 and 2045”.
• Aging and Death Relations The growth of damages in the organ elements that are required for the creation of new cells of the body leads to death.
• Health and Wellness of Aging: Abuse and Illness In the case of abuse, the situation deteriorates, and the senior individual cannot recuperate quickly, which affects the way they function.
• Health & Wellness of Aging. Gerontological Society of America The Gerontological Society of America is an organization, which aims to research and ensure the health and wellness of aging among American older adults.
• Online Dating for Aging Adults Considering the benefactors of the relationships that aging people develop through dating sites and applications also helps to determine the actual value of the tools in question.
• Health Policy by the Administration of Aging The five-year strategic plan of The Administration of Aging exemplifies the importance of having a rulemaking stage during the implementation of national aging health policy.
• Aging Services Access Barriers and Counterstrategies However, by improving the reciprocity between a patient and a nurse with the help of different types of media, one can address the issues temporarily, at the same time working on long-term goals such as […]
• Aging and Leisure From a Healthcare Perspective However, the mentioning of adult patients being aware of the concept of leisure allows one to build an effective framework for addressing health issues in older adults.
• Aging in Rural Places: Retirement and Leisure Therefore, strategies for assisting older adults to transfer to a new stage of their development and retain the extent of their activity are important goals. Moreover, it is critical to ensure that the healthcare needs […]
• Aging Population of the World as a Healthcare Issue The area of healthcare is the domain that has been affected by the rise in the number of aging people to the greatest extent.
• Gerontology: The Aging and Disability Programs The practitioner is in charge of taking care of older adults, and the administrator is involved in greeting and guiding the clients.
• Normal Aging of Brain Structures and Cognition Evidence of brain changes can be seen as early as the middle age in that there is a decrease in the number of neurotransmitter binding sites, as well as a decrease in the level of […]
• Care Coordination for Aging Population in the Clinical Setting However, the described solution to the health problems of aging patients may entail difficulties in coordinating the work of the health experts involved in a team.
• Aging and Barriers to Healthcare in Rural Areas For this purpose, the integration of innovative technology and the reconsideration of the current infrastructure will have to be seen as possible solutions.
• Brain Aging and Nursing Assessment The research shows that the introduction of aerobic exercises and strength-improving routines reduces the chances of developing Alzheimer’s disease while countering the negative effects of a sedentary lifestyle on the muscular-skeletal structure.
• Strategies to Slow the Brain Aging Aging may result in severe effects on the brain and lead to cumulative damage and the impairment of cognitive functions. However, it is possible to prevent and slow the effects of brain aging.
• Primary Prevention for the Aging Population Among the examples of primary prevention, the best strategies for caring for the aging population include vaccination, health education, and the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.
• Aging Word and Meaning Behind Its Use While this is a natural process, this paper explains why people use the word “aging” in a derogatory manner. The use of the word in a respectful manner will empower more senior citizens to pursue […]
• The Concept of Successful Aging Medical specialists and theorists of psychology create a variety of concepts and definitions that in their opinion most fully reflect the idea of successful aging.
• Aging and Policy Issues in Rural Places As someone who has quite extensive experience of working with older adults and elderly patients in the oncology, medical-surgical nursing, and telemetry units, I have to confirm that meeting the needs of patients in a […]
• Successful and Unsuccessful Aging: My Grandfather’ Story In this paper, special attention will be paid to the story of my grandfather and his style of life that turns out to be a strong example for me.
• Women’s Aging Fears in Personal Fashion Blogs I would like to stress that it should be age-appropriate and modern at the same time. Moreover, I learned that there is a need for the development and implementation of relevant programs aimed to improve […]
• Cataract Development and Aging Factor The problem of cataract blindness is essential to discuss because the occurrence of the condition in aging adults increases at an extremely high rate.
• Aging Population Impact on the Labor Market These employees are also special in the fact that they have the capacity to stay with one firm for a very long time.
• Aging Theories and Interview With the Elderly For a better understanding of both the process of aging and the theories we have studied in class, I have conducted an interview with an elderly person, and the results of it are presented in […]
• Aging, Its Ethical and Cultural Issues Right to life is only looked at when referring to the embryo and not when referring to the improvement of life quality for the old.
• Aging Process: Developmental Experiences The paper is guided by the empowerment theory, which is expected to be useful for understanding the behavior and experiences of the interviewee.
• Health, Illness and Optimal Aging The skin is known to show the most noticeable signs of aging in people. The skin consists of three layers namely the epidermis, the dermis, and the subcutaneous fat.
• Canada’s Aging and Demographic Dynamics That is, the issue of ‘Canada’s aging’ is closely interconnected with other qualitative aspects of contemporary Canadian living, concerned with the government’s continual endorsement of the policy of multiculturalism and affected by the overall socio-economic […]
• The Myth of Mental and Physical Deterioration in Old Age The findings of these studies suggest that mental deterioration is not inevitable, as the participants were found to preserve high cognitive function and mental health.
• Getting Old: Healthy or Unhealthy Aging It is wise to choose a healthy lifestyle to enjoy the goodness that life has to offer. One is able to concentrate on their career and be able to plan for retirement.
• Aging Population Trends in American Society According to a report by Samuel, the number of the elderly in the United States has been on the rise since the country gained independence.
• How Can We Delay the Aging Process in Skin? Hsu, Li, and Fuchs note that the intrinsic and extrinsic biological factors such as the changes in the stratum corneum structure and corneum along with the occurrence of lipids justify the use chemical peels as […]
• Delaying the Skin Aging Process This essay discusses some of the methods that are applicable in the endeavors to delay the skin aging process. Fourth, enough sleep is essential in the skin developmental and aging processes.
• Aging-Related Physical and Behavioral Changes Nevertheless, the process can be identified in several life stages from young adulthood, throughout maturity and up to the aging stage, where both the processes and the effects become the most prominent.
• Aging and Its Cultural and Ethnic Factors The main idea that I am going to promote throughout the paper’s entirety is that the aging-related issues cannot be referred to as such that represent the value of a ‘thing in itself’ in the […]
• Suadi vs. Australian Aging and Occupational Therapy Therefore, the objective of the given paper is to investigate the current system of occupational therapy operations in Saudi Arabia and identify the gaps to fill. The focus of the study is occupational therapy for […]
• Dementia, Aging, Gerontology: Theories and Care Proponents of the theory, Elaine Cumming and William Henry take the psychosocial perspective in explaining the unhealthy collective relationships the aging person’s experience in the latest phases of their lives.
• Aging Population Issues in American Prison System A case of an increase in the number of elderly people in prison was reported in 2000 when the number of elderly prisoners was only 3% of total America’s prison population, but in 10 years […]
• America’s Aging Workforce: Merits and Demerits Another factor that has contributed to the prevalence of the aging workforce in America is the demographic changes that are being experienced.
• Physical Changes and Aging in Psychology It is important to understand various provisions of physical changes in the context of human development. It is crucial to understand various provisions of growth and physical development with respect to aging.
• Holistic Approach to Successful Aging Based on the above statistics, it is apparent that the USA will experience an absolute aging society in the future. One of the great accomplishments of healthcare in the 21st century is an improvement in […]
• Aging and Parkinson’s Disease Parkinson’s disease refers to a condition, where a portion of the brain is damaged progressively over a period of many years.
• Geriatrics: Aging Effects on Individuals and Society Individuals at the age of 60 and above are referred to as the elderly. The term chronological age refers “to the age of a human being from the day of his or her birth”.
• Elderly and Aging in American and Viking Societies In the end, the conclusions are drawn to understand the significance of elderly and attitudes towards the aging process in each society.
• Canadian Healthcare Spending on Aging Population The increase in the aging population corresponds with the increase in life expectancy in the country. In this paper, the impact of the aging population on the healthcare expenditure in Canada will be discussed.
• The Exercise and Diet’ Implications on Aging Studies have also shown that regular exercise and healthy eating habits among the aging population helps to improve the rate of glucose metabolism in the body.
• The Ideas for Skin Care and Anti-Aging Products In this essay, we are going to use the ideas for skin care and anti-aging products in a bid to explore further the topic of ideation and to put it into practice.
• Aging Offenders in Prison The increased number of elderly inmates is partly due to the introduction of longer sentences in the 1970s and 1980s as US took a tough approach to crime.
• Impact of Aging Population on the US Economy Due to the advanced age of the patients in this case and the complexity of the care they require, the available caregivers will be forced to compromise the health of their patients in an attempt […]
• Aging: Health Sector Challenges According to Health Ties, one of the biggest challenges currently experienced in the health care sector is the increase in a number of the aging population.
• Sociological Theories and the Process of Aging Functionalists agree with proponents of conflict theory that the society experiences some breakdowns and that mistreatment of the poor in the society is a reality.
• Physical Appearance in Old Age and Social Degradation People consider old age as a social problem and, in fact, many people do not want to age. There is the need to expand research and training to eliminate the problem of ageism within the […]
• Aging Issues: Elderly, Cultural Values and Support The provision of long term care for the elderly is one of the issues in aging. These factors include the sources of long term care finances, the processes used in the determination of a person’s […]
• Physical Aging: Ectocranial Suture Closure One essential aspect of forensic science is the ability to determine the age of the skeletal remains at the time of death.
• Aging as a Social Process Society is able to grow and progress because of the values and conventions that the elderly pass on to the upcoming generations.
• Aging Population in Singapore In light of the abovementioned demographic trends, it is imperative that the government put in place strategies and programmes to address isolation and depression facing the ageing populations.
• Function Plasticity in Cognitive Aging The extensive available literature covering plasticity of the brain and the perceptual psychophysics of aging strongly emphasize that the negative consequences of brain plasticity is a significant contributor to cognitive decline related to advancements in […]
• Third Age Living and Computer Technologies in Old Age Learning This essay gives an analysis of factors which have contributed to the successful achievement of the Third Age by certain countries as a life phase for their populations.
• Public Policy: Obesity and Aging Society In the realm of the United States’ health care, the aging society is drawing much attention based on the evident increase of obesity prevalence among older citizens that has resulted to an increase in many […]
• Is Aging Infrastructure Slowing the U.S.? The deteriorating state of infrastructure has been linked to the current economic crisis that is being experienced in the United States of America.
• Aging, Culture, Ethnicity and Family Care The research by the author shows the limitations of the informal structures in dealing with the elderly. She is the organizer of the family reunions and the custodian of the family history.
• Aging in Society and Community The superb comedy movie also looks at the major life changes, such as retirement and life of widowhood, transformations in living arrangements, and economic and political issues that define the habits of the old people […]
• The Problem of Population Aging in the US Given that the retirement age is the determinant of labour force participation, increased retirement age would significantly reverse economic crisis due to population aging.
• What Are the Negative Stereotypes About Aging?
• What Are the Reproductive Problems in Aging Men?
• What Are Your Attitudes About Aging?
• Why Is Researching Aging Important?
• What Is the Main Danger for Aging People?
• What Are the Stages of Aging?
• Why Is Aging Important in Society?
• What Are the Pillars of Aging?
• What Are the Factors That Influence Aging?
• What Are the Two Theories of Successful Aging?
• What Are the Hallmarks of Aging?
• What Are the Keys to Successful Aging?
• Does Language Comprehension Decline With Age?
• What Is Current Research on Aging?
• What Are the Six Principles Important in Treat Aging People?
• What Is Wisdom in Aging?
• What Vitamin Increases Longevity of Aging People?
• What Are the Types of Aging?
• What Are the Things That Will Increase the Life Expectancy of Aging People?
• What Are the Factors of Aging?
• What Is Body Type Best for the Longevity of Aging People?
• What Is a Healthy Aging Concept?
• What Is the Real Cause of Aging?
• What Is the Most Important Intervention for Aging People?
• Is Healthy Aging Possible?
• What Is the Main External Cause of Aging?
• What Are the Two Main Reasons for the Aging Population?
• What Are the Theories of Aging?
• How Can We Solve the Problem of Aging Population?
• What Are the Problems of Ageing?
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• Chicago (N-B)

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8 Memoirs About Getting Older

Steph Auteri

Steph Auteri is a journalist who has written for the Atlantic, the Washington Post, Pacific Standard, VICE, and elsewhere. Her more creative work has appeared in Creative Nonfiction, under the gum tree, Poets & Writers, and other publications, and she is the Essays Editor for Hippocampus Magazine. Her essay, "The Fear That Lives Next to My Heart," published in Southwest Review, was listed as a Notable Essay in Best American Essays 2021. She also writes bookish stuff here and at the Feminist Book Club, is the author of A Dirty Word, and is the founder of Guerrilla Sex Ed. When not working, she enjoys yoga, embroidery, singing, cat snuggling, and staring at the birds in her backyard feeder. You can learn more at stephauteri.com and follow her on Insta/Threads at @stephauteri .

View All posts by Steph Auteri

I pee my pants a little when I sneeze too hard. I get drunk — and then later get a hangover — from a single glass of wine. In June of last year, I sprained my ankle…and I don’t even know how . I wrapped it in a brace for four months. Even now, seven months later, I still feel a twinge of pain sometimes when I walk around the house. When I told my husband about it, he said, “We’re old now. Things just don’t heal anymore.”

But as I move into my 40s, it’s not just my earnest consideration of leak-proof panties and under-eye cream that makes me think about the fact that I’m getting older. It’s my new relationship with ambition (can I stop reaching for the stars now and just embroider things all day?). It’s my new relationship with marriage and intimacy (can I stop shaving my legs and scheduling date nights and just read books in bed all night?). It’s my new relationship with my parents (he llooo sandwich generation). It’s the way my guilt over certain things has simply fallen away, finally making it easier for me to set firm boundaries and say no to all the things.

With these deeper shifts, I’ve found myself connecting less and less with books about early career shenanigans and coming of age and finally finding oneself (though don’t get me wrong…I’m still not convinced I ever really found myself and I would love for someone to tell me where to look). Thank god for memoirs by older authors who really get me, and with whom I might be able to talk openly about the fact that I keep a travel urinal in the trunk of my car just in case .

If you’re looking for that same level of understanding, check out these eight memoirs about getting older.

Love and Trouble by Claire Dederer

I read this memoir five years ago when I was firmly in my 30s, but I still found a lot to connect to in this book that bills itself, in the subtitle, as “a midlife reckoning.” Love and Trouble is about Dederer reconciling the young woman she used to be with the woman she has become in midlife. I was most struck by how Dederer casually revealed the worst parts of herself to readers, displaying that zero-fucks-left-to-give energy I’m coming to know so well. I also connected with her musings on sexuality and power, and with her deep wanting to be wanted. When you’re 15+ years into a marriage and your fashion sense can best be described as mom-at-school-pickup, you start missing that feeling of being desired by others (though, at other times, that sense of invisibility can be a blessing).

Quietly Hostile by Samantha Irby (May 16)

What is this? Irby’s…eleventy billionth essay collection? A noted blogger and comedian, she is in top form in her latest (which, sorry not sorry, is not out until May). I think what I enjoy most about Irby’s work, beyond the wacky humor, is how it feels like she just…gets me. Whether writing about incontinence or masturbation or having the palate of a 7-year-old, I am right there with her. It helps that we’re the same age. The frustrating minutiae of what things are like as one grows older permeate every page. Bladder issues. Bad knees. They’re all just a fact of life.

Calypso by David Sedaris

There was a time (back in college) when one of my favorite genres was White Dudes who Write Humorous Essays. And David Sedaris was one of those dudes. I don’t know. I guess I wanted to be them? Anyway, years passed and then, in 2018, I read Calypso . Sedaris’s voice…his sense of humor was the same as it had always been. But things had taken a darker turn. I appreciated how Sedaris tackled some tough topics in this book, including the death of one of his sisters, and the shift in the relationship he had with his aging father, without losing any of the laughs. Dark humor for the win.

The Madwoman in the Volvo by Sandra Tsing Loh

Another humorous essay collection, this one tackles a very specific part of growing older (for those with ovaries, anyway): the journey through perimenopause and menopause . As she grapples with “the changes,” Loh also struggles to raise her preteen daughters, deal with her imploding marriage, care for her aging father, weather the ups and downs of her career, and more. In the end, she happily concludes that things do get better.

Old in Art School by Nell Painter

Once upon a time, I was an early career freelance writer and editor doing quite well for myself. Then there was a recession. I scrabbled about for new sources of income and ended up earning my career coaching certification (lol). I referred to this as my “encore career,” even though I was only 28 (double lol). Historian Nell Painter, meanwhile, was in her 60s when she went to art school, earning a BFA and then an MFA after already having had a full-ass career. In her memoir (triple threat!), she tackles ageism, sexism, racism, and identity in the course of telling the tale of how, post-retirement, she decided to start over.

Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

I read this graphic memoir right before my dad received a diagnosis of MCI (mild cognitive impairment), and I felt as if I were looking into my future. There is the anxious, aging father who eventually slips into dementia. There is the willful, stubborn, aging mother who refuses to ask for help when she needs it. And then there is the daughter — Roz Chast herself — who doesn’t know quite how to handle this sudden shift without completely upending her own life. See the aforementioned reference to the sandwich generation. Beyond the parallels to my own life, I appreciated how this book showed a woman pushing back against what is expected of daughters, making decisions that took into account not only the care of her parents but also of herself.

Gray is the New Black by Dorothy Rice

Okay. Full disclosure. I know Dorothy. She was one of my readers at Hippocampus Magazine (and always left the most insightful feedback!) and she edited my work at under the gum tree (only making it stronger!), so I was unsurprised by the fact that she’s a gorgeous writer, too. Her memoir is ostensibly about her decision to let her hair go gray, but it’s also about all the other insecurities she carries as she finds herself growing older…insecurities around her body, her eating habits, her marriage, and more. These are sources of misplaced shame I think many of us can relate to.

I See You Made an Effort by Annabelle Gurwitch

Finally (and because I’m obviously a sucker for a comedic essay collection), we have this one by Gurwitch, a woman on the edge of 50. Falling in lust…the anti-aging industry…losing those she loves…this book goes through the whole rollercoaster of later-in-life experiences. Because when you’re falling apart (and, as my husband points out, nothing heals), all you can really do is laugh.

For more like this (but fictional), check out this list of exciting books about women over 50. And if it’s the practicalities of aging that have you terrified, this list of the best books for seniors has you covered.

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Do You Have "FOGO?" Taming the Fear of Getting Old

Three truths about aging, and four ways to plan for a fulfilling older age..

Posted June 29, 2021 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is Fear?
• Find a therapist to combat fear and anxiety
• Surveys show that FOGO, the fear of growing old, is common.
• To reduce FOGO, it can be helpful to know three surprising research-based benefits of aging.
• These four healthy actions can counter four common fears about aging.

How common is the fear of getting old? So common that this fear even has its own acronym—FOGO, “Fear of Getting Old.” Although less catchy, the term “gerontophobia” is sometimes used to describe the same thing.

A 2014 survey of 2088 Americans age 18 and older, commissioned by the drug company Pfizer, found that 87 percent of participants had at least one fear about getting old. (I was surprised to find that 13 percent of those surveyed didn’t have any anxiety about getting old.) According to this survey, conducted online by Harris Poll, 23 percent of Americans worry about a decline in their physical ability, 15 percent worry about memory loss, 12 percent fear running out of money, and 12 percent are concerned about chronic illness . Only 10 percent say they fear dying , an astoundingly low percentage from my perspective.

Also in 2014, Pfizer commissioned a study to analyze how aging was being discussed on Twitter . The results: “Social research study found that the majority – 62 percent – of the 4.2 million Tweets posted about aging in the last 12 months were negative.”

There are some conspicuous gaps in the Pfizer survey. For example, key topics seem to have been omitted, such as the fear of losing loved ones. And the sample size is relatively small. Still, the survey reveals the widespread FOGO in our society. What can we do about it?

Three Happy Truths About Getting Older

For starters, know the amazing facts. Here are three things to know about the benefits of aging:

1. Older people tend to be happier people.

Older and happier? Yes. As I write here , surveys from all over the world show a similar pattern: Adults are least happy in mid-life , with the happiness low point at age 50. But starting at about age 51, happiness levels begin to increase. In fact, as they aged, older adults rated their life satisfaction progressively higher, with happiness ratings rising gradually and steadily from age 50 on.

Do these feelings last forever? No, but they can last until almost the very end of life. Let’s face it, at that point, disability and final illness exact their toll on many. Still, the survey research is enlightening. It not only reframes but actually reverses the usual narrative about Old Age as a time of misery.

If you have a friend who is freaking out at the prospect of turning 50, tell them, that starting at age 51, they will begin to feel a whole lot happier.

2. Older people tend to be healthier people.

Physically, of course, all of our parts are aging. There’s no denying that. Geriatrician Louise Aronson, the author of Elderhood , points out that no matter how many blueberries you eat, your body is going to get older. And however healthy your lifestyle may be, you will probably have some physical challenges as you age.

But Aronson also points out that most older people rate their health as good or excellent because they can still do the things that matter most to them. Moreover, only about 1 percent of older people are in nursing homes. Because the population is aging, the absolute number of people with dementia is going up, but the percentage of people with dementia is declining, and there are well-researched ways to prevent 40 percent of dementias like Alzheimer’s.

3. Older people are mentally healthier.

Laura Carstensen, director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, notes that mental health generally improves with age. From her book, A Long Bright Future , here are the specifics:

• Older people have lower rates of nearly all mental health problems, including depression and social anxiety , than younger people do.
• “Olders”* over 65 have “the most stable and optimistic outlook” of all adults.
• Olders report being happier with their relationships than youngers.
• Some psychological abilities increase with age: gratitude , the ability to resolve conflicts, and forgiveness , for example.

Still, aging does have its challenges. How could you combat those fears about aging listed in the survey?

Draft a Plan for Healthy Aging

“Turn fears into healthy actions,” recommends Freda Lewis-Hall, M.D., former Chief Medical Officer at Pfizer. “People of all ages should start thinking about how they want to age and turn fears into healthy actions.”

To address the top fears listed in the Pfizer survey, consider the actions below as a worthwhile investment into your aging portfolio.

1. Counter the fear of physical decline and chronic illness with regular exercise and other healthy lifestyle practices.

Suggestions:

• Aim for 150 minutes of exercise per week. Do whatever you can do; just do something. Plus, get up every hour and move around to counteract possible “sitting diseases.”
• Eat right and maintain a healthy weight . While blueberries and kale may not be the fountain of youth, healthy eating will reduce the chance of chronic health problems.
• Sleep seven to nine hours a night.

2. Counter the fear of memory loss with up-to-date information, prevention, and planning.

• Follow the lifestyle recommendations above. Research suggests that a meditation practice might help, too.
• Avoid outside activity when the air quality is poor. Protect young children from polluted air, too. Remember, aging begins even before birth.
• Keep your blood pressure low.
• Avoid concussions.
• Acquaint yourself with the latest research on preventing dementias here .

3. Counter the fear of running out of money with a sound financial plan.

• Check your social security and retirement accounts regularly.
• Consult with a trusted CPA or financial planner.
• If possible, save more and spend less.

4. Counter fears of loneliness and of losing loved ones by maintaining social connections. (You’ll live a longer and happier life, too.)

• Cherish your friends and connect often.
• Make friends of all ages.
• Cherish your family and keep in touch.

The Big Picture

To make sure that your older years are more joyous and less anxious, be alert to ways you can advocate for societal changes that support a better aging process for everyone. Among other things, you might vote to support healthcare for all and to protect and expand Medicare and Social Security. You might advocate for good pain management , better housing options for elders, and universal design in all new construction. Demand larger print and smaller pills.

Finally, to counter any remaining FOGO, memorize this wise quote from broadcaster Andy Rooney: “I didn’t get old on purpose. It just happened. If you’re lucky, it could happen to you.”

(c) Meg Selig, 2021.

Note: * I have adopted the useful term “olders” from Ashton Applewhite’s book on ageism, This Chair Rocks.

All rights reserved. For permissions, click here .

Aronson, L. (2019). Elderhood. NY: Bloomsbury Press.

Carstensen, L. L. (2011). A Long Bright Future: Happiness, Health, and Financial Security in an Age of Increased Longevity. NY: Perseus Books, p.110.

Rauch, j. (2018) The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50 . NY: St. Martin’s Press.

Selig, M. (2020) Silver Sparks : Thoughts on Growing Older, Wiser, and Happier. Sierra Vista, AZ: Jetlaunch.

Meg Selig is the author of Changepower! 37 Secrets to Habit Change Success .

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Andrew Scott (from left), Marisol Amaya, Caitlin Coyle, and Ashwin Vasan discuss changing attitudes toward aging with moderator Kay Lazar.

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America’s graying. We need to change the way we think about age.

Experts say instead of disability, focus needs to shift to ability, health, with greater participation, economically and socially

Alvin Powell

Harvard Staff Writer

People in their 70s, 80s, and even 90s run marathons, write books, and go to work daily. But the predominant national conversation on aging focuses on disability rather than ability, something experts say is a problem as participation of America’s older adults grows more important, economically and socially, as the nation ages.

And it’s not just the young with the attitude problem. Caitlin Coyle, director of UMass Boston’s Center for Social & Demographic Research on Aging, said some of the biggest perpetuators of negative stereotypes are those growing older themselves.

“How we talk about it is powerful,” Coyle said Wednesday, as part of a discussion of the topic at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health . “We do a lot of internalized ageism with self-talk like ‘Oh, I feel so old today,’ or ‘I can’t do that,’ ‘I’m too old for that,’ or ‘I can’t stay up late.’ I think if we start to engage people in thinking about how they talk about aging outwardly — and also how they think about aging internally — we can really start to shift the societal narrative.”

The panelists at the event “A reexamination of aging: Living longer, happier, and healthier” agreed attitudes about aging set expectations for ourselves and others, but what’s also important are programs and policies crafted to encourage healthy aging — via prevention and risk-factor reduction, along with involvement in society, through work, volunteerism, family relationships, religious organizations, or other ways of engaging that can bring meaning to life.

“I think if we start to engage people in thinking about how they talk about aging outwardly — and also how they think about aging internally — we can really start to shift the societal narrative.” Caitlin Coyle

“We are expecting to live much longer than our parents and grandparents. And the structures we put in place to support healthy aging are really crucial,” said New York City Health Commissioner Ashwin Vasan, a Chan School graduate and member of the panel. “At every turn, we are not just looking at the averted negative consequences of unhealthy aging, but looking at the aspirational, forward-looking indicators of healthy aging.”

The discussion hosted by The Studio at the Chan School was moderated by Kay Lazar, a reporter at The Boston Globe, and also featured Marisol Amaya, executive director of La Alianza Hispana, and Andrew Scott, professor of economics at London Business School and author of the book “The Longevity Imperative: How to Build a Healthier and More Productive Society to Support Our Longer Lives.”

Panelists acknowledged that declining health and rising disability are part of the landscape as one grows old, but Scott said it seems that when people think about aging they “go straight to the end” where those factors take on greater importance.

He attributed part of that to the “medicalization” of aging, which focuses on health problems and death. But what’s lost in between are, for many, years of increased life satisfaction, greater acceptance of oneself and others, decreased pressure to live up to ideals of how to look and behave, greater emotional stability during crises, and new opportunities to learn and develop new skills.

“The trouble with aging is we tend to go straight to the end of life. And that’s one of the reasons why we don’t like to think about a longer life being about having more future,” Scott said. “How do you think about that? How do you prepare for it? We see aging as an event — you’re 65 years old — but it’s a process that is relevant to all ages. What can you do to manage that process and how do you make sure you make the most of it?”

The tendency to view aging through a medical lens is not the only issue, however. Family structure in the nation has changed as people have fewer children and multigenerational living arrangements grow less common. This has led to an increasing tendency to segregate society by age and worsened the problem of isolation among the elderly.

At La Alianza Hispana, a social service agency focused on the Latinx community of Greater Boston, the elderly are provided programming based on individual preferences — bingo, for instance, isn’t for everyone and should be reserved for those who love it, Amaya said. Others want to play instruments, others to learn something new, and still others to teach.

Accordingly, the nonprofit’s elder-services program emphasizes flexibility, even hiring people still willing to work and able to draw on a lifetime of experience. Some are lacking in computer and other tech skills, but those can be taught, which the organization does, she said.

“We are flexible. We always encourage them to do more, empower them, because they see barriers and say, ‘I cannot do it,’” Amaya said.

As we create a society that is more elderly-friendly, Scott said thinking about the economics of living longer is important, since many fear outliving their resources.

But it’s also important to think about how to allow people to stay productive longer, which has to begin earlier in life by guarding one’s health through better habits, thinking about how to make jobs more age-friendly, and perhaps shifting roles from those that require strength to those that emphasize skill and experience.

A significant amount of attention must also be paid, panelists agreed, to reducing inequality in healthful aging. The trend toward healthier aging is not universal, with Black and brown communities making up a disproportionate number of those who die before 65, Vasan said. That highlights the importance of addressing preventative health in those communities in the decades before 65.

“I think inequity is a real missing piece in the dialogue, the public narrative, around longevity and aging,” Vasan said. “How do we create a civic expectation that healthier, longer lives are more equitably experienced? These are not mutually exclusive agendas. The equity agenda is central to the life expectancy agenda. There is no path that doesn’t go through equity. Addressing the causes of premature death gets us to healthier, longer lives for everybody.”

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This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity Paperback – June 8, 2010

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• Print length 192 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Shambhala
• Publication date June 8, 2010
• Dimensions 5.52 x 0.5 x 8.51 inches
• ISBN-10 1590307763
• ISBN-13 978-1590307762
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Shambhala; Fourth Printing edition (June 8, 2010)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1590307763
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1590307762
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8.4 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.52 x 0.5 x 8.51 inches
• #470 in Zen Spirituality
• #491 in Aging Parents (Books)
• #14,891 in Memoirs (Books)

About the authors

SUSAN MOON is a writer, editor, and Buddhist teacher in the Soto Zen tradition. Ever since she set out from her childhood home to get lost on purpose at the age of 10, she has been searching far and wide for the meaning of life and sharing what she learns with others. Her books include This Is Getting Old: Zen Thoughts on Aging with Humor and Dignity; the groundbreaking collection, The Hidden Lamp: Stories from Twenty-Five Centuries of Awakened Women, with Florence Caplow; and What Is Zen? with Norman Fischer. Her most recent book, Alive Until You’re Dead: Notes on the Home Stretch, is a collection of essays about the surprising perks of mortality. Susan is a contributor to Lion’s Roar, Tricycle, and other publications. She lives in Berkeley, California, and practices at the Berkeley Zen Center and with the Everyday Zen Sangha. For many years she has taught and led Zen retreats in California, elsewhere in the U.S., and internationally. She also adores her grandchildren.

Susan Ichi Su Moon

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21+ Sure Ways to Tell You Are Getting Old

Posted: March 31, 2024 | Last updated: March 31, 2024

There are a lot of things that I love about getting older. I love being able to rent a car without paying an extra fee, buy a house, or spend a Friday night experimenting with different flavors of hummus because what do I need to go out for? But there are also parts about getting old that aren’t quite so fun. Anyone who’s past their 20s knows what I’m talking about: aches and pains, having to do boring adult stuff, and feeling like no matter how much you sleep, it’s never enough. Read on to see posts gathered from around the web from people recounting how they have realized that they are getting old.

#1: Getting Comfy

I don’t know about you guys, but I have always associated sitting a lot with older people. Pretty much every memory I have of one of my grandpas is of him sitting in a recliner, feet propped up, looking comfortable and relaxed. As a kid, I didn’t get it; I wanted to run around playing with the toys he kept in his basement. But the older I get, the more I understand it. I, too, see the value of a comfortable chair where I can prop my feet up. Like the writer of this post, I am becoming more like a grandfather every day.

#2: Everything Comes Back in Style Eventually

Isn’t it weird how fashion comes in cycles? It seems like everything comes around every 30 years or so. In the 60s and 70s, people wore bellbottoms and many flowers; in the 90s, we wore sunflowers on everything and flare-legged pants so wide that they dragged on the ground behind us. And now, another 30 years later, the kids are once again wearing wide-legged pants and clothes covered with little sunflowers and daisies. Personally, I’m not a fan; for one thing, like this poster, it reminds me how old I am, and for another thing, I don’t think it’s cute now, and it makes me realize that what I was wearing was not cute back then, either.

#3: Let’s Not Talk About That

Death is an inevitable fact of life, something that we will all deal with time and time again, so it’s important to learn how to deal with it and make peace with it when it occurs. But nothing will make you feel older than when people who shared some years on this planet with you—meaning they can’t be that much older than you—start to pass away. In the last 10 years, we have lost some amazing people, like David Bowie—whom I will always love for his portrayal of Jareth the goblin king in Labyrinth—Whitney Houston, Robin Williams, and Carrie Fisher. It really is crazy to see people that you’ve admired pass away and realize that you’re that much closer to death yourself.

#4: Not Bouncing Back

I don’t know about you guys, but I miss a lot of things about college. I miss not worrying about taxes, retirement savings, or health insurance. I miss having loads of free time to hang out with friends and roommates. I miss going to college athletic events, dances, and activities. Most of all, I miss being basically indestructible. I used to stay up every night until 4:00 AM, then wake up at 9:00 for classes, and it didn’t even faze me. I could eat anything, and I never got sick. Now, I get a half-hour less sleep than normal, and I’m basically non-functional for the next day. Are you guys the same way?

#5: Familiar Faces

I was never cool, but at least I knew who was cool. I knew which songs were popular on the radio and who was in movies and on TV. These days, though, I have absolutely no idea who or what is popular. I am totally out of touch. What makes it even more difficult is that there are so many more famous people these days. It used to be just actors and musicians I had to worry about, but now there are TikTokers and YouTube personalities and people who are famous for reacting to other people’s makeup unboxing tutorials. How are we supposed to keep up with all of this?

#6: Bedtime

Kids hate going to bed; that’s just a fact. Unless you hit the absolute jackpot when it came to procreating, when you try to put a child to sleep, they cry, complain, fight you, and then figure out how to climb out of their crib once you’ve left the room. My mom tells me that I was the same way as a kid. But now that I’m an adult, I don’t get what I was thinking. Is there anything better than going to bed? Getting to climb into your comfy, cozy bed and sleep for as long as you can possibly get away with? That’s pure magic, that is.

#7: Hobbies for Old People

Some hobbies just seem like they are for old people: knitting and crocheting, making quilts, sitting on the porch, and whittling. Also, golf (don’t tell any golfers I said that; they tend to be really proud of themselves for golfing). But birding might be the absolute pinnacle of old people hobbies. Who wants to spend their days sitting in the heat (or cold) and just hoping that they see a cool bird? However, I’ve started noticing more and more of my peers are getting into birding. It looks like I might be getting old.

#8: Medical Mishaps

Going to the doctor ebbs and flows throughout life. When you’re a baby, you have to go to the doctor for checkups to ensure you’re growing fast enough, vaccinations, shots, and antibiotics because you seem to get sick all the time. But when you get to be about college age, unless you have some major condition, you feel indestructible. You never go to the doctor, and it seems like you’re absolutely fine. But then you get older, and suddenly you’re going to the doctor all the time again. And here’s the bad news: it never goes back the other way. You’re just going to have more and more medical problems until you finally die.

#9: Toenail Troubles

Why is it so impossible to reach your toes? Who is responsible for this inefficient design? Trying to paint or clip your toenails feels basically unachievable even when you are young and spry and much better at twisting your body into pretzel shapes. But as you start to get older, it becomes even more impossible—you can’t even get close to reaching that far. That’s when it’s time to start paying for pedicures. For many of us, it’s the only way that our toenails are ever going to get taken care of . . . plus you feel like a fancy rich person when you get one.

#10: Planning Ahead

As a kid, you are never prepared for anything. Preparing for things would require you to think ahead, and children are just never any good at thinking ahead. It’s a miracle if you leave the house with matching shoes on; you’re certainly not going to be carrying around Tylenol, hand sanitizer, and tissues. For many of us, the sign that we’ve really grown up is that we’re actually prepared when we leave the house. I think the first time that I was away from home, needed pain medication for a headache and was actually prepared was basically the proudest moment of my life.

#11: Wait, How Old Am I?

They say that everyone remembers where they were when they heard about the September 11 terror attacks at the World Trade Center. Personally, I was getting ready for school when my mom told me she’d heard it on the news. I bet if you asked any American, they’d be able to tell you exactly what they were up to that morning. So, given that it’s such a massive event in our collective memories, it’s crazy to think that there are people out there who are too young to remember it. And then it’s four times as crazy to realize that those people are now old enough to be in college.

#12: Skincare Sins

When I was in college, I took a stage makeup class. I don’t remember much that I learned, but I do remember the teacher telling us, just as a useful life tip, to use a face moisturizer with sunscreen every single day. If we started doing this when we were young, she said, we would be glad of it when we were older. Did I listen? Of course not! How could you imagine I would be that responsible and look that far ahead? So I was not careful about my skin, and now that I’m older, I’m absolutely paying the price. I just try not to look at myself in harsh lighting conditions.

#13: A Little More Serious

All right, we’re going to get serious for a moment. When you’re a kid, you think that your parents are invincible. Dying is something that happens to your great-grandparents. Then, years pass, and suddenly it’s your grandparents who are now passing away. So what’s really astonishing is when you get old enough that it’s your parents and your friend’s parents who start dying. It shakes you to realize that these people who were always invincible to you are old enough to die. And then you realize that it’ll soon be your generation’s turn.

#14: Weight Watching

Is there anything more depressing than looking at a photo of how skinny you were in high school? Okay, I guess that’s not universally true; some people get into health and fitness in college or later, so they look much skinnier later in life than in high school. But for most of us, things only worsen when we age. When you’re a kid, you can eat anything and you burn it off. As you get older, though, your metabolism falls apart, and suddenly, all you have to do is look at a donut and put on five pounds.

#15: How Do People Make Friends Anymore?

I think the truest thing I ever heard about friendships in your 30s came from the BBC radio show Cabin Pressure: “After the age of thirty, you just don’t meet anyone new. You’re on your raft with your friends, and everyone else is on their raft. Sometimes the rafts bump into each other, but there’s no raft-hopping.” Because this is exactly what friendships are like. When you’re young, it seems like you could meet someone and suddenly you’re best friends. When you’re in your 30s, you meet new people, and no matter how well you get along with them, you just can’t figure out how to make the jump to actually hanging out with them. So I hope you have friends before you turn 30 or you’re going to be in trouble.

#16: Let’s Just Stay Home

Have you ever heard that John Mulaney bit about how “in terms of instant relief, canceling plans is like heroin”? Truer words were never spoken. There is nothing better in this world than when you spend all day thinking about that thing you agreed to do tonight, and then suddenly something comes up, and you no longer have to go. You get to stay home, but you also get to feel good about yourself because you did make an effort to be social. If your plans don’t get canceled, though, you can do the next best thing: find a way to bail from your plans early. A party is the best for this because if there are a lot of people there, your friends and/or the host may not notice that you have disappeared.

#17: Cold Quandaries

When I was in high school, there was a kid who wore shorts, a t-shirt, and no shoes every single day: rain, shine, snow, freezing temperatures; he didn’t care. (The no-shoes thing really grossed some people out, although if you think about it, surely your feet and your shoes are equally gross after walking around on the ground for a while.) That’s the sort of thing you can do when you’re 15 and you don’t feel pain. The older you get, though, the more you can’t tolerate the cold. That’s why old people keep their houses at 75 degrees. (And if wanting your house warm makes you an old person, I must be 95 years old at heart.)

#18: Eyewear Shenanigans

The older you get, the more your body falls apart. That’s just an inevitable truth. Your joints will begin to ache; your metabolism will grind to a halt; you’ll be exhausted all the time; your voice will start to get creaky. And, as this person points out, your eyesight will start to get worse. Even if you didn’t need glasses when you were younger, there’s a good chance that as you get older, you’ll need to start wearing reading glasses. And then you’ll have to do like this person and move stuff closer and farther from your face to try to get it in focus.

#19: Influencer Idiocy

It’s weird to think that there are kids alive today for whom “social media influencer” seems like a legitimate career choice. When I was a kid, that was not even remotely a thing that people did. The only way to make money on the internet was to be a web designer or sell ads. So for those of us who are older, the idea of someone being an influencer can seem pretty crazy. I mean, to be fair, some of them actually make interesting and useful content. But most of them just seem like, as this person says, a narcissist with a camera who contributes nothing to the world.

#20: What a Trip

This next post is sort of wholesome if you think about it. It’s sweet that people get concerned when older people trip; it’s a reminder that most of us are generally decent human beings who are concerned about other human beings not getting hurt. It becomes a little less charming, though, when you are the person that people are concerned about. I don’t think any of us want to think of ourselves as elderly enough that if we stumble, there’s genuine concern that we might be about to break a hip.

#21: The Kids Are Now Adults

It’s a weird fact of life that time seems to move very differently at different parts of your life. When you’re a kid or a teenager, a few years can make all of the difference in the world—I mean, think about how different it is to be a 7th grader versus a 10th grader. When you’re an adult, though, it kind of feels like time starts to stand still. So sometimes, the only way that you can tell that time is passing is by looking at young people who are still growing. Realizing that someone who is your age has a child who is now an adult can be a rude awakening to the fact that time is rapidly passing and you are rapidly getting older.

#22: You Young Whippersnappers

If you are a young person, maybe you look at the grumpy old man sitting on his porch, shaking his fist at you and yelling at you dang kids to get off his lawn, and you tell yourself that you will never be like that; you will always be kind-hearted and full of love and charity. Well, I have bad news: becoming old and cantankerous can happen without you even realizing it. Because it’s a real thing that the older you get, the easier it is to get impatient with people. Without even trying, suddenly you become that old man sitting on his porch and yelling at the neighborhood kids.

#23: Family History Nerd

Earlier, we talked about hobbies that seem like they are for old people, such as going out to try to identify birds. Well, there’s one that didn’t make it onto our list, but that really should have: family history, or trying to identify and learn information about your ancestors. We often associate this with our older relatives—everyone seems to have an aunt or uncle who’s really into family history—but it’s a lot of fun no matter how old you are! If this is something that you are curious about, there are a lot of free resources out there to help you get started. You should definitely give it a try.

#24: TV Troubles

One of the biggest changes between being a kid and being an adult is the shift in who you identify with when you watch TV and movies. I remember seeing something posted somewhere about how when you’re a kid, you watch Little Mermaid and you identify with Ariel, and then you watch it again as an adult and you identify more with King Triton. But there’s nothing wrong with that! Older characters have a lot to offer the story as well! Identify with Red from That 70s Show if you want to because Eric really is a smart-mouth! Yell at Ariel that 16 is still a child and she should listen to her parents and not throw herself at the first handsome guy she meets!

#25: A Job Well Done

Someone sent me a funny picture the other day; it said something about the satisfaction you get when you look at certain pictures, and the picture in question was a really beautifully designed dish drainer and sink organizer. I kid you not, I immediately tried to figure out where that sink organizer was for sale, because it was everything I needed and wanted in my life. If you’re young and you’re thinking that you will never be deeply moved by something that helps you keep your house organized, I am here to tell you that a great deal can change in your life. Someday you too will gain immense happiness in your life from having your life organized.

#26: Grouchy Old Grump

The older I get, the more sympathy I have for the grumpy old people in my life. You might tell yourself that you are never going to become one of those grumpy old people, because you are young and vibrant and carefree, and you see beauty in all around you, including those people who are being really obnoxious. But someday—and that day is not long in coming—you will find yourself frequently getting annoyed at the smallest things. Children being loud and disrespectful will make you lose your mind. And don’t even get me started on being stuck around people who talk in a movie theater.

#27: That’s Not How Eyes Work

I have identified on a really personal level with everything on this list so far, which freaks me out, because, apparently, I’m even older than I realized. But all of them were things that had occurred to me on some level before. Not so in this next post. It had never occurred to me until this moment, but this is absolutely something that I do as well. Is this universal? Is this something that more people than just the writer and I do? And why are we so absurd as to think that turning down the music is going to help us read street signs better? It makes no sense, but I do it all the time.

#28: I Like Periods, Period.

Wait, is this genuinely a thing? Are younger people offended by ending a sentence with a period? What do they want people to end sentences with? Do they think everyone should end everything with an exclamation point, so we seem really happy all of the time? Or do they just think that we should leave everything open-ended, with no closing punctuation? But honestly, I don’t care, and I don’t want to care. That’s one of the best parts about getting older: I no longer feel any pressure to keep up with what the kids think is cool. If they try to say that ending a sentence with a period is offensive, I can say, “Cool, I definitely don’t care, and I’m not going to do anything with that information,” because I no longer have any interest in impressing anyone! It’s really liberating.

#29: That 90s Confusion

Until I was in college, anytime someone mentioned a person being 14, I instinctively thought, “Oh, I’m 14!” even if I was actually 17 at the time. Now that I’m older, that has shifted somewhat: now I always instinctively assume that I’m in college, even though it has been some time since I have been in college. I do the same thing with decades, like this writer. I still think that the 90s were only a decade or so ago, and when someone reminds me that the decade was 30 years ago, I am overcome with horror and an inescapable sense of my impending death. (Okay, I’m exaggerating. But not very much.)

#30: Late Night Laziness

When you were a kid, you could stay up until all hours of the night and never get tired. So that’s what most of us did. When I was in college, I knew the location and hours of every late-night restaurant in the entire metropolitan area, so no matter what time of the night or morning we decided we needed pancakes, we had a place to get them. These days, I won’t leave my house later than 9:00 PM unless there’s a fire. I’m much happier curling up with a book or a TV show late at night. The magical draw of a late-night Denny’s run no longer competes with the magical draw of my comfortable bed.

#31: No Cap

I find myself in the same place as the writer of this next post, except I feel like I often handle it badly. I have no idea what the cool new slang is, and I have no idea how to talk like the cool kids. But the trouble is that on the rare occasion when I do pick up new slang, I don’t know when it eventually goes out of style. So I find myself in the weird situation of not knowing if the slang I use is old-fashioned enough to make it clear that I’m obviously not trying to be cool or whether it’s just out-of-date enough that it’s going to look like I’m trying to be cool but failing at it. I think I’m going to start using 1800s slang just to be safe.

#32: My Grown-Up Christmas List

Who here remembers creating Christmas lists? Every year, we would carefully watch the toy commercials and see what it was we wanted, then write a long and detailed list of everything we wanted Santa to bring us. The older we get, though, the less we do that sort of thing. Well, I guess I shouldn’t speak for everyone; maybe some people still present their spouses or roommates with a list of all the things they want them to buy. (Which sounds like a good way to annoy people.) But most of us have moved past it.

#33: Too Loud or Not Too Loud?

A lot of things in your body just seem to work a little bit less well as you get older. Sleeping doesn’t perk you up the way it used to, so you have to sleep longer to get the same effect. Your muscles and bones get tired and achy, and you’re not nearly as flexible as you used to be. And then there are your ears, which are a whole different ball game. The weird thing about your ears is that they can go weird in two different directions. For some people, everything seems too loud, so you want it turned down. For others, you can’t hear as well, so you need everything turned up. For this person, both appear to be true.

#34: Feeling Nostalgic

Nostalgia can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective, the situation, or just your mood at that moment. On the one hand, I think a lot of us are currently at the point where, when we hear that they are remaking yet another show or product, we roll our eyes and wonder if anyone has any original ideas anymore. On the other hand, there really can be something delightful about seeing something that you remember from your childhood. It can be comforting, it can make you laugh, or it can just make you feel smug because we’re all inclined to think that the stuff we had when we were kids is better than any other generations had.

#35: Tattooed Tots

Is it just me, or did tattoos just get wildly popular in recent years? I swear that when I was a kid, you didn’t see nearly as many people with tattoos . . . or maybe it’s just that I, personally, didn’t see nearly as many people with tattoos. Of course, when I was a kid, 90% of the people that I associated with were other kids, so that could have something to do with it. Either way, though, I totally get where this person is coming from. When everyone seems younger than me these days, it’s starting to seem like people are getting tattoos really young.

#36: Mellowed with Age

In this article so far, we’ve talked a lot about people who get more cantankerous and impatient as they get older, eventually becoming the sort of old person who sits on their porch and shakes their fists at the neighborhood kids, but that’s not a universal experience. Some people get more mellow with every year that passes. The optimistic part of me wants to believe that it happens as we gain more wisdom and maturity, and those things teach us to take what life throws at us with more equanimity. The realistic part of me suspects that it has more to do with getting lazier and less energetic.

#37: Sleepy Time

This next post is a common refrain that you’ve probably heard from friends and family as they get older; you might have even said it yourself. It seemed like you could get away with hardly any sleep when you were young, and now, if you don’t get your full night’s rest, you’re basically a disaster the next day. What’s interesting, though, is that science doesn’t really back that up. Babies need more sleep than any other group of people, and then as we get older and older, the amount of sleep we need less and less sleep. So maybe it’s just that when you’re younger, you’re better at ignoring what your body needs.

#38: Birthday Bummer

For the first 20 years of your life, birthdays are the most important things in the world. When you’re young, you carefully plan out what cool activities you’re going to do for your birthday party and who you’re going to invite. You look forward to it for weeks. But then you hit your twenties, and things start to change. At first, your parties may be bigger than ever now that you can do whatever you want and you have more money. And then, slowly, you just stop caring as much, as you and your friends start settling down and getting real jobs and raising families. The next thing you know, you’re marking your birthday with only a quiet dinner with your significant other.

#39: The Handy Man Can

I think that one of the fascinating things that change as we get older is the value of money versus time. When you’re younger—high school age, college age, and into your twenties—you probably have a lot more time than money, so it makes a lot of sense for you to do things like move your own furniture and fix problems around your house. As you get older, though, you may find yourself in a situation where you have more money but less time. Suddenly it becomes much more sensible to pay someone to come in and do stuff for you. Honestly, it’s an awesome situation to be in; I love not having to do stuff.

#40: Oldies Angst

When we were children, oldies radio stations played songs that our dads got excited about. Do you remember that? Oldies songs were Steely Dan and the Beatles and Chicago. Our music was the stuff on the cool hip, young radio stations. If this rings a bell for you, then let me warn you not to listen to oldies radio stations once you hit about the age of 30. Because the first time you hear a song from your high school days on an oldies station—and you will—your life will flash before your eyes, and you will realize that you are likely only days from death.

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Perception of when old age starts has increased over time, shows study

As people get older, they revise the age they consider to be old upwards

None of us are getting any younger, but it appears the age at which we are considered old has moved upwards over the generations.

What’s more, as adults get older, they shift the goalposts further still, a study has shown.

The researchers behind the study said the upward shift could be down to increases in life expectancy and retirement age, as well as other factors.

“We should be aware that conceptions and perceptions of ‘old’ change across historical time, and that people are quite different regarding when they think old age begins, dependent on their age, their birth cohort, but also their health etc,” said Dr Markus Wettstein, co-author of the study, from the Humboldt University of Berlin.

Writing in the journal Psychology and Aging , Wettstein and colleagues report how they analysed responses to the question: “At what age would you describe someone as old?”, which is part of the ongoing German ageing survey that follows people born between 1911 and 1974.

The results from 14,056 middle-aged and older adults who answered the question between one and eight times over a 25-year period from 1996, when they were between 40 and 100 years old, reveals that the point at which old age is thought to begin has increased.

“For those born in 1931, the perceived onset of old age is 74 when they are 65. For those born in 1944 it is about 75 years when they are 65 years old,” said Wettstein, adding that while the study could not ask 65-year-olds born in 1911 when they thought old age began, models suggest it would have been at 71.

However, it seems perceptions are stabilising: while the team found people born after 1935 perceived old age as beginning later in life than those born between 1911 and 1935, there was no noticeable difference between those born between 1936 and 1951 and those born between 1952 and 1974.

Further, as people get older, they revise the age they consider to be old upwards.

“This could have to do with the fact that many people do not want to be old, so they postpone the onset of old age,” said Wettstein, adding that that could be related to age stereotypes.

However, it seems those born in later cohorts shift the goalposts to a greater extent: while people born in 1944 revised their notion of old age upwards by 1.9 years on ageing from 64 to 74, those born in 1934 shifted their view by less than a month between these ages.

The team add that while the perception of when old age begins was higher for women than men, and lower for those who had poor health or were more lonely, neither these factors nor education level or how old participants felt, fully explained their findings.

Caroline Abrahams, the charity director at Age UK, said it was well known that people tended to judge “old” as meaning at least a few years beyond their chronological age, even in their 70s and 80s, and that probably reflects the bad image of “old” in western cultures.

“This is a shame if it holds us back from living as full and happy lives as we could and should in our later years, because of us self-limiting our activities and aspirations,” she said.

Instead, Abrahams said the idea that we are “as old as we feel” is a lot more supportive.

“The truth is that chronological age is rarely a good proxy for anything and the sooner we realise that in our society, the better,” she said.

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Guest Essay

A Huge Gender Gap Is Emerging Among Young Voters

By Thomas B. Edsall

Mr. Edsall contributes a weekly column from Washington, D.C., on politics, demographics and inequality.

It has become clear that one constituency — young voters, 18 to 29 years old — will play a key, if not pivotal, role in determining who will win the Biden-Trump rematch.

Four years ago, according to exit polls, voters in this age group kept Trump from winning re-election. They cast ballots decisively supporting Biden, 60 to 36, helping to give him a 4.46-point victory among all voters, 51.31 percent to 46.85 percent.

This year, Biden cannot count on winning Gen Z by such a large margin. There is substantial variance in poll data reported for the youth vote, but to take one example, the NBC News national survey from April found Trump leading 43 to 42.

Young voters’ loyalty to the Democratic Party has been frayed by two distinct factors: opposition to the intensity of the Israeli attack on Hamas in Gaza and frustration with an economy many see as stacked against them.

Equally important, a large gender gap has emerged, with young men far less likely to support Biden than young women.

Bill McInturff , a co-founder of the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies — which conducts surveys for NBC along with the Democratic firm Hart Research — provided The Times with data covering a broad range of recent political and demographic trends.

Tracking the partisan identification and ideology of 18-to-34-year-olds, the McInturff analyses show that from 2012 to 2023, women became increasingly Democratic, going from 55 percent identifying as Democratic and 29 percent Republican in 2012 to 60 and 22 in 2023. The shift was even more striking in the case of ideology, going from 32 percent liberal and 29 percent conservative to 51 percent liberal and 17 percent conservative in 2023.

Among young men, the Democratic advantage in partisan identification fell from nine points in 2012 to five points in 2023.

What gives?

I asked the Democratic pollster Celinda Lake , who recently joined the Biden campaign’s polling team, a job she also held in 2020. She sent a detailed reply by email:

Three reasons. First and foremost is the abortion issue and all the aspects of reproductive health, including medication abortion, I.V.F., birth control and criminalizing abortion. Young men are very pro-abortion and birth control, but young women really vote the issue. Second is style and respect. Young men are not as troubled by the chaotic and divisive style of Trump, while young women want people to be respected, including themselves, want stability and are very concerned about division and the potential for violence. Young women think Trump’s style is an embarrassment abroad, a poor role model for their children and dangerous for the country. Younger men, especially blue-collar, have a grudging respect for his strength and “tell it like it is” attitude. Third is the economy. Young men, especially blue-collar and people of color, feel left behind in this economy. They do not feel things have been delivered to them. They do not know anything about what this administration has done. Younger women are much more committed to a role for government to help people like themselves as a foundational view. They don’t know much more about the economic programs than young men, but they tend to respond more favorably to Democrats in general on the economy. Younger men also feel more left behind on the economy and more sense of grievance than young women do who are also increasingly dominating college and higher education.

The Times/Siena poll conducted April 7 to 11 asked voters “How much do you think Donald Trump respects women?” A majority of men, 54 percent, replied that Trump does respect women (23 percent “a lot” and 31 percent “some”), while 42 percent said he does not (14 percent “not much” and 28 percent “not at all”).

Women replied quite differently, with 68 percent saying Trump does not respect women (24 percent “not much,” 44 percent “not at all”) and 31 percent saying Trump does respect women (15 percent “a lot” and 16 percent “some”).

Jean Twenge , a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and the author of “ Generations : The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers and Silents and What They Mean for America’s Future,” wrote by email that the question of why there is such a gender divide “is tough to answer,” but she made some suggestions: “It could be that the changes on the left have driven young men away from the Democratic Party. For example, the idea that identities can be divided into ‘oppressor’ and ‘oppressed’ may have alienated some young men.”

Another likely factor, according to Twenge, is:

Fewer young men get college degrees than young women, and in the last 10 to 15 years the parties have split by education, with more of those without a college degree conservative and Republican. This appears even among high school seniors, where young men who do not plan to attend a four-year college are 30 percent more likely to identify as conservative than young men who are planning to get a college degree.

Richard Reeves , who wrote the book “ Of Boys and Men : Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters and What to Do about It,” argued in a January essay posted on his Substack :

In the centrifugal dynamic of culture-war politics, the more the right goes to one extreme, the more the left must go to the other, and vice versa. The left dismisses biology; the right leans too heavily on it. The left see a war on girls and women; the right see a war on boys and men. The left pathologizes masculinity; the right pathologizes feminism.

In this context, Reeves wrote, “Young men see feminism as having metastasized from a movement for equality for women into a movement against men, or at least against masculinity.”

In an article published in January on the Business Insider website, “ The War Within Gen Z ,” Daniel A. Cox, the director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute , wrote:

Something strange is happening between Gen Z men and women. Over the past decade, poll after poll has found that young people are growing more and more divided by gender on a host of political issues. Since 2014, women between the ages of 18 and 29 have steadily become more liberal each year, while young men have not. Today, female Gen Zers are more likely than their male counterparts to vote, care more about political issues and participate in social movements and protests.

Cox noted that “at no time in the past quarter-century has there been such a rapid divergence between the views of young men and women,” suggesting that “something more significant is going on than just new demographic patterns, such as rising rates of education or declining adherence to a religion — the change points to some kind of cataclysmal event.”

After interviewing young voters, Cox and his colleagues at the A.E.I. survey center concluded:

Among women, no event was more influential to their political development than the #MeToo movement. In 2017, women around the world began speaking out about their experiences with sexual assault and harassment. Gen Zers were then in high school and college, and for them, the movement came at a formative moment.

But, Cox continued:

while women were rallying together, many Gen Z men began to feel like society was turning against them. As recently as 2019, less than one-third of young men said that they faced discrimination, according to Pew, but today, close to half of young men believe they face at least some discrimination. In a 2020 survey by the research organization P.R.R.I., half of men agreed with the statement: “These days society seems to punish men just for acting like men.”

For a growing percentage of young men, Cox wrote:

Feminism has less to do with promoting gender equality and more to do with simply attacking men. A 2022 survey by the Southern Poverty Law Center found that 46 percent of Democratic men under 50 agreed that feminism has done more harm than good, and even more Republican men agreed.

More young men, he added, “are adopting a zero-sum view of gender equality — if women gain, men will inevitably lose.”

How does this translate into politics?

According to Cox:

While women have turned to the left for answers to their problems, men are finding support on the right. Trump helped redefine conservatism as a distinctly masculine ideology, stoking grievances and directing young men’s frustration toward liberals and feminists. There are signs the message is resonating: Republican affiliation among white men aged 18 to 24 jumped from 28 percent in 2019 to 41 percent in 2023, according to a Harvard Youth Poll .

On April 8, McInturff published a report, “ Key Data by Generation ,” on his firm’s website:

“We are witnessing a profound generational break,” he wrote, “between Generation Z versus the baby boomers that is already reshaping our country, its values, media habits and its politics.”

At the outset, McInturff compared the values of Gen Z respondents ages 18 to 26 with those of the baby boomers, now 59 to 77.

Some 76 percent of baby boomers placed a high value on patriotism; for Gen Z, it was 32 percent. Nearly two-thirds of baby boomers, 65 percent, highly valued religion and their belief in God; Gen Z, 26 percent. Having kids: baby boomers, 52 percent; Gen Z, 23 percent. Asked if they agreed that “America is the best place to live,” 66 percent of boomers said yes, double the 33 percent of 18-to-26-year-olds.

In other words, the youngest voters are, at least for the moment, disaffected from traditional notions of family, country and religion.

Even so, young voters as a whole are decidedly more liberal on specific policies and issues than their elders.

On gay marriage, according to McInturff’s data, 84 percent of voters 18 to 34 were in favor, compared with 51 percent of voters 65 and over. Ending transgender discrimination: young, 55 percent; old, 24 percent. Climate change: 64 to 39. Cutting the defense budget, 48 to 24.

One particular issue is currently working against Biden and Democrats among young voters.

“The Israel/Hamas war in Gaza reflects one of the sharpest policy differences by age we have seen over a 40-year period,” McInturff wrote. “President Biden’s support for Israel has collapsed his standing with one of his key and previously most supportive subgroups, 18-to-29-year-old voters.”

McInturff compared data on voters 18 to 34 in two categories: surveys conducted from January to September 2023, before the war began, and surveys conducted after it started, from November 2023 to January 2024.

The shift among these young voters is terrible news for the Biden campaign. In the pre-Gaza polling, young voters backed Biden by 29 points, 61 to 32. In the post-Gaza surveys, Biden’s advantage over Trump fell to four points, 45 to 41.

If the decline in young people’s support for Democrats holds through Election Day, it will be a major setback for Democratic strategists who, before the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war, were banking on what appeared to be a secure partisan commitment by Gen Zers and millennials to the Democratic Party.

One of the key findings in the Harvard Youth Poll of 2,010 18-to-29-year-olds, conducted March 14 to 21, is that support for Biden among young voters fell far short of his support four years ago:

If the presidential election were held today, President Biden would outperform former President Trump among both registered (50 percent Biden, 37 percent Trump) and likely young voters under 30 (56 percent Biden, 37 percent Trump). When there is no voter screen (i.e., all young adults 18 to 29), the race narrows to single digits, 45 percent for President Biden, 37 percent for Trump, with 16 percent undecided.

At the same point in 2020, the Harvard Youth Poll “showed Biden leading Trump by 23 points among all young adults (51 percent to 28 percent),” compared with an eight-point lead in 2024. Among “likely” young voters in 2020, Biden led Trump by 33 points (60 percent to 27 percent), compared with 19 points in the current survey.

Young men account for virtually all the drop in support for Biden.

Joe Biden leads among both men (+6) and women (+33). Compared with this stage in the 2020 campaign, Biden’s lead among women is nearly identical (was +35 in 2020), but his lead among likely male voters has been dramatically reduced from +26 in 2020 to +6 today.

The same pattern emerged in partisan identification:

In 2020, 42 percent of young men in our poll identified as Democrats, and 20 percent were Republicans (+22 Democratic advantage); in this wave, 32 percent are Democrats, and 29 percent are Republicans (+3 Democratic advantage). Over the same period, the Democratic advantage among women expanded by six points. In 2020, 43 percent of young women in our poll identified as Democrats, and 23 percent were Republicans (+20 Democratic advantage); in this wave, 44 percent are Democrats, and 18 percent are Republicans (+26 Democratic advantage).

The Harvard survey corroborates McInturff’s analysis of the damage inflicted on the Biden campaign by the Israel-Hamas war. The Harvard study found that anger over the conflict has produced a substantial bloc of young voters — although not a majority — opposed to Israel’s attacks in Gaza.

The Harvard Youth Survey found that when asked if the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas justified Israel’s continuing response, “a plurality indicates that they don’t know (45 percent). About a fifth (21 percent) report that Israel’s response was justified, with 32 percent believing it was not justified.”

According to the Harvard survey, “Young Americans support a permanent cease-fire in Gaza by a five-to-one margin (51 percent support, 10 percent oppose). No major subgroup of young voters opposes such action.”

If Biden is struggling to restore his majorities among young voters, how is it that he remains competitive with Trump, running behind by 1.4 percentage points , according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls?

One reason is that the share of the electorate made up of the white working class, the core of Trump’s support, is steadily declining, while the number of college-educated white people, an increasingly strong source of Democratic support, is growing.

A second factor is that defections to the Republican Party that had been emerging among a small percentage of Black and Hispanic voters appear to have stopped, if not reversed. Matthew Blackwell , a political scientist at Harvard who tracks polling trends, posted graphics on X last month, noting, “Biden mildly trending better among Black and Hispanic subgroups in the last few weeks of polling.”

In an email, Blackwell expanded on his post: “The big takeaways are that Biden has been polling worse with Black and Latino voters compared to 2016 and 2020, but over the course of April, we did see some movement of these groups back to the 2020 levels, even if they haven’t quite gotten there yet.”

Blackwell predicted that “we can probably expect many prior Biden voters to ‘return to the fold’ as the campaign goes on,” before adding that many surveys may underestimate support for Biden:

Most of the polls are of registered voters without likely- voter screens . Many pollsters have found that regular voters are more supportive of Biden than nonregular voters. As we get closer to Election Day, we will probably see more likely-voter polls that may be more accurate.

Biden has improved on his 2020 margins with several very large blocs of voters: white people with college degrees (plus 1.3 points), white people without degrees (plus 0.6 points), 50-to-64-year-olds (plus 4 points) and voters 65 and older (plus 1.8 points). While the percentages are small, the groups are huge, making even a half a percentage point shift significant.

The closeness of the contest between Trump and Biden puts especially heavy pressure on Biden to negotiate a cease-fire, if not a conclusion to hostilities in Gaza. Nothing would do more to restore at least some of the crucial support he received from young men and women four years ago.

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Thomas B. Edsall has been a contributor to the Times Opinion section since 2011. His column on strategic and demographic trends in American politics appears every Wednesday. He previously covered politics for The Washington Post. @ edsall