People in their sixties are doing better than previous generations at the same age.
Imagery of elderly people are well behind reality, says the professor of gerontology and public health Taina Rantanen From the University of Jyväskylä and the Gerontology Research Center. According to him, the mental images should be renewed, especially for people in their sixties, who still have several years of work ahead of them.
Rantanen does not understand why employers might, for example, discriminate against elderly applicants.
“Personally, I would prefer to hire someone in their sixties. They have long work experience and the right motivation, and family life doesn't demand as much as it did when they were younger. A 60-year-old can do just as well in working life as a 30-year-old, unless it's a job that requires extreme physical effort,” he says.
Nowadays people in their sixties are doing better than previous generations at the same age. Research director of the Gerontology Research Center Katja Kokko From the Faculty of Physical Education of the University of Jyväskylä, he leads a study in which people born in 1959 have been followed since the age of 8. The subjects were last interviewed in 2020–2021, when they were around 61 years old.
“Only about 20 percent of them had retired. 70 percent felt their health was very or fairly good, i.e. the same number as ten years earlier. They felt more like 50 than 60 years old.”
“
“Well-being does not decrease, on the contrary, it increases.”
90 percent of the subjects felt that life was purposeful. They also moved according to the recommendations. Alcohol consumption and smoking had also decreased over the decades.
In the theories of developmental psychology, it has been assumed until now that after the age of 60, the phase of losses begins and the ability to function decreases little by little.
“This is probably no longer the case. New, international studies show that well-being does not decrease, on the contrary, it increases. Self-esteem is at its peak in the sixties and emotional life is more balanced than before,” says Kokko.
Professor Rantanen says that after the age of 65, a new age begins, which can be called the third age or late middle age. The functional ability of 75- and 80-year-olds has clearly improved in 30 years. Rantanen studied age group muscle strength for the first time in 1989–1990.
“When we did the same study in 2017-2018 for 75- and 80-year-olds at the time, for example, the strength of their thigh muscles was 20-47 percent better than 30 years earlier. The condition of women in their 80s had improved in particular.”
According to Rantanen, the current twenty-somethings have lived a more favorable life than the age group he studied 30 years ago. Working life conditions have improved: working hours are shorter, there are breaks and proper vacations. Nutrition is better, exercise has increased and there is less pollution today than, for example, in the 1960s and 1970s.
“A wider range of social roles is also available to older people than in the past. You don't just have to sit in a rocking chair knitting socks, it's accepted to be sporty, go to the gym, swim and run. Or, for example, at gigs.”
Rantas is saddened that old people may be talked about either as tars or as customers of care services. According to Rantanen, the majority of them are somewhere between these two extremes and live the normal, useful everyday life of an adult.
“Of the population over 65, only less than five percent live in round-the-clock care,” says Rantanen.
I care however, the need increases in the oldest age groups. In 2021, there were 58,000 people who turned 90 in Finland. In 2040, they are expected to be 140,000.
“Although the condition of the elderly is improving, the increase in their number increases the need for care. Society should prepare for both an improvement in their ability to function and an increase in the need for care,” says Rantanen.
#Aging #Theories #sixties #longer #hold #true