(12-5-16)
Ages of Life
- Weiss and Bass (2002) discussed development in terms of four “ages”
- first age (youth): preparing for the activities of maturity (employment, child rearing)
- second age (maturity): devoting oneself to these activities
- third age (“young old”): occurs between retirement and the start of age-imposed limitations; not strict chronological boundaries but often discussed in terms of 65 to 74
- typically there is sufficient health and vitality that no major limitations are faced
- typically children are raised and financial responsibilities are reduced
- typically there is greater freedom (relative to the second age)
- ideally standard of living remains close to what it was while working
- fourth age (“old old”): commonly brings some decline in independence for most and some health challenges
- Bates (1997) marked entry into the fourth age as the 80th birthday, but this is only a fuzzy boundary
- fastest growing segment of the American population; many who reach 80 can expect to live an additional 7 years
- declines may be not only physical but also cognitive
- accomodations will be necessary for most in terms of transportation, living environment, and (eventually) independence,
- loss will become a major issue (health, mentation, independence, career, friends and family)
- This “third age” is presently available to a considerable number of Americans due to:
- economic factors over the past half century
- increases in life expectancy
- “compression of morbidity”: illness and physical limitations have been pushed to a later point in the life course
- Whether this continues into the future is uncertain
- need for proactive financial planning
- cost of health care
- limitations of medical advances
- The quality and duration of the “fourth age” remains an ongoing challenge
- the maximun life span of a human being presently appears to be approximately 120 years
What makes for a “good life?”
- Rown & Kahn (1998) suggested three elements were the basis for successful aging:
- good health
- continued high cognitive and physical functioning
- engagement with life
- Vaillant (2002) proposed a similar model with six criteria:
- no physical disability at age 75 as rated by a physician
- good subjective physical health (no problems with instrumental activities of daily living)
- length of undisabled life
- good mental health
- objective social support
- self-rated satisfaction in eight domains (marriage, income-producing work, children, friendships and social contacts, hobbies, community service activities, religion, and recreation/sports)
- Baltes and colleagues (2006) proposed the Selection, Optimization, and Compensation (SOC) model of “positive aging”
- developing and choosing goals
- application and refinement of goal-relevant means or actions
- substitution of means when previous ones are no longer available
Quality of life
- subjective well being
- positive affect
- negative affect
- life satisfaction
- coherence of life
- Karl Pillemer (2011) 30 Lessions for Living: Tried and True Advaice from the Wisest Americans, research based on interviews with Americans 65 years of age and older
- the refrigerator list (Pillmer, 2011, p. 244)
- “Time is of the essence. Live as though life is short–because it is.”
- “Happiness is a choice,not a condition. Happiness isn’t a condition that occurs when circumstances are perfect or nearly so. Sooner or later you need to make a deliberate choice to be happy in spite of challenges and difficulties.”
- “Time spend worrying is time wasted.”
- “Think small. When it comes to making the most of your life, think small. Attune yourself to simple daily pleasures and learn to savor them now.”
- “Have faith. A faith life promotes well-being, and being part of a religous community offers unique support during life crises. But how and what you worship is up to you”
- “a strange cultural phenomenon in contemporary society: rigid stratification by age. It’s a very rare thirty-year-old who invites a seventy-year-old friend over to share a pizza and watch the football game. Studies show that amost all our friends are within ten years of our own age, and many are within five years. Most people are more likely to have a close friend of another race than one who is twenty years older or younger.” (Pillemer, 2011, p. 254).
A human life: review the: map out the story of your life you wrote out
“You do not have to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
(W. Edwards Deming)
- expectation vs. prediction
- factors affecting our life course
- where: location, family, residence
- when: era, time
- what your text refers to as “normative age-graded influences” (p. 10) would play a role here
- factors affecting our life course
- Limitations on prediction
- cohort effects (“normative history-graded influences”, text p. 11)
- idiosyncratic effects (“nonnormative” influences, text p. 12): accidents, chance events and encounters (good and bad), and our reactions to these
- Albert Bandura and serendipitous events
- Serendipity/Synchronicity: “People are often brought together through a fortuitous constellation of events that can shape the course of their lives” (163).
- Albert Bandura and serendipitous events
- Predicting the furure (Moody & Sasser, 2015)
- How far can we look? A generation takes us to 2040, a decade earlier is 2030, even for such distant dates some predictions are probably accurate:
- 1. population aging is predictable
- Baby boomers are turning 65 at a rate of more than 10,000 a day and will continue to age
- Over the next two decades the U.S. will come to resemble Florida, with nearly 1 in 5 people over the age of 65
- This pattern will persist into 2030 and 2040
- political and economic events are highly unpredictable: the elections of Mr. Trump being elected in 2016 and Mr. Obama in 2008 surprised many; as did the Great Recession of 2008, the most massive economic collapse since the Great Depression
- the 21st century began with dramatic surprises (September 11, 2001; Great Recession of 2008; Arab spring); Johnasen (2007) suggests that until 2020 the world will be characterized by VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity). To prosper the traveler in the 21st century will need, “cognitive buffers against volitility, heuristic skills to cope with uncertainty, conceptual understanding to cut through complexity, and a balanced perspective to take account of opposing view that confort us with ambiguity (Moody & Sasser, 2015, p. 501).
- 2. Demography is the base of prediction. By 2020 the American population over 65 will be 1 in 6. Not all Boomers are wealthy but they have money to spend: they already control two thirds of financial assets in the U.S. They will also have health problems: despite longer life expectancies, boomers show higher rates of chronic disease and more disabilty then previous generations (King et al., 2013). Boomers will need to live somewhere and they will need caretaking. The caretaker support ration (number caretakers divided by number needing care) is projected to drop from a high of 7 to 1 down to 6 to 1; by 2030 it will be down to 4 to 1.
- 3. Most of you will have completed your formal education by 2020 and entered or reentered the labor market, often burdened by student loan debt. By 2014, student loan debts came to exceed all credit card debt in the U.S.
- 4. By 2020 graduates will be in a job market shaped by the retirement of aging boomers. Some boomers will remain in the workplace and it may become more multigenerational.
- 5 By 2015 people 50 and older constituted 45% of the U.S. population, a huge market for products and services: growth opportunities for health care, financial services, travel and hospitality, and retirement housing; so called “silver industries.”
- 6. The workplace may see more specialization and credentialing in fields of elder law, private geriatric care managers, gerontological social workers, and certified senior advisors.
How do we measure a “successful life”?
Ryff (1989) defined well being along six dimensions: positive relations with others, environmental mastery, self-acceptance, having a purpose in life, personal growth, and autonomy.
- material achievements: The one who dies with the most toys wins
- wealth, power, fame, dynasty
- longevity: “What did you think of the new ‘Titantic’ movie? The boat sinks.”
- Issue 19, Should We Try to “Cure” Old Age?
- Guest, A.M. (2013). Taking Sides: Clashing views in life-span development, 4th ed. New York: McGraw Hill
- Yes: M.J. Rae et al. The demographic and biomedical case for late-life interventions in aging.
- No: R. Holliday. The extreme arrogance of anti-aging medicine.
- Guest, A.M. (2013). Taking Sides: Clashing views in life-span development, 4th ed. New York: McGraw Hill
- cryogenics movement, the “singularity”, immortality
- passing on a family name
- Issue 19, Should We Try to “Cure” Old Age?
- contributions: “Let us always remember Og, who discovered fire.”
- contributions in art, science, medicine, civilization
- helping launch the next generation successfully
- beloved: “A heart is measured not by how many you love but by how many you are loved by”
- personal enlightment: making peace, coming to terms with your life, achieving a sense of closure
- religious/spiritual/philosophical beliefs
- relationships
- and, most importantly of all: How do you measure a successful life?
- Having a plan versus taking things as they come
- Plan are very helpful if you are tying to accomplish something,
- but, is life something you are trying to accomplish?
- Acceptance, going with the flow, “hakuna matata”
- Who among you by worrying can add a single day to your life?
- Moderation in all things, including moderation (James Hilton, 1933, Lost Horizon)
“Three billion heartbeats. The clock is ticking.”
(Carroll, 2016, p. 433)