At what age are you considered old? New research points to a shift

How old is considered old?

The answer to that question appears to be changing as people live longer, retire later, and maintain higher levels of physical and mental health into old age.

A study published Monday found that people in their mid-60s believe old age begins at 75 — but the older people get, the later they think it starts.

The study, published in the American Psychological Association’s journal Psychology and Aging, examined data from about 14,000 participants in the German Aging Survey, which studies old age as a life stage in Germany. The participants were born between 1911 and 1974 and took part in the survey between the ages of 40 and 85.

The people studied reported their perception of old age up to eight times over a period of 25 years. For every four to five years that passed, participants reported that old age started one year later than at their last assessment.

Participants born earlier – from 1911 to 1935 – thought old age started earlier compared to participants born after 1935.

“Our perceptions or beliefs about old age clearly shift over historical time. People who are in mid-life or older adults today believe that old age begins later than their peers 10 or 20 years ago,” said Markus Wettstein, lead author of the study and a psychologist at Humboldt University of Berlin.

Wettstein said the change could be partly due to the increase in life expectancy: German life expectancy is about 81 years, up from 71 years in 1974. Many people in Germany are also living healthier longer. Studies have shown improvements over time in heart health, cognitive skills and overall quality of life in the country’s older population.

“People who feel younger also believe that old age begins later,” Wettstein said.

Study participants who were lonelier, had more chronic illnesses or reported being in poorer health were more likely to believe that old age started earlier.

On average, women thought that old age started about 2.4 years later than men.

However, Jacqui Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan who was not involved in the study, cautioned that the results may not apply to other countries because cultural views on aging and historical trends vary by community. In the US, for example, life expectancy fell during the COVID pandemic, from 79 years in 2019 to 76 years in 2021 – while life expectancy in Germany has been fairly consistent since 2014.

Still, Smith says the study offers insight into how people’s perspectives on aging change as they grow older.

“A lot of the work we see in the literature is just taking a single snapshot of this phenomenon, a single point in time,” she said. “What this study adds is that it compares different people who were born at different times and who have clearly gone through many different historical changes in their lives.”

John Rowe, a professor of health policy and aging at Columbia University, said he found the results encouraging.

“I would say this confirms in a very strong way, at least in Germany, that 70 is the new 60,” says Rowe, who was also not involved in the study.

He theorized that people may begin to shed some negative stereotypes about the elderly and instead view them as more capable or agile than in the past. However, both Rowe and Wettstein also said that some people in the study may have consciously excluded themselves from the old age category because they saw it as undesirable.

“Some people have such a negative image of the elderly that they don’t want to be associated with them,” says Rowe. “So when they’re 70 years old, they say old age starts at 75. And when they turn 75, they say that old age begins at 80.”

Of course, age is not always related to health status.

“We can’t equate any general transition in age with the way people actually function,” Smith said.

However, people’s perceptions of aging can affect their health.

Previous research has shown that negative beliefs about aging are linked to higher stress levels, which in turn can increase the risk of heart attack or stroke. Conversely, studies have shown that people with a positive view of aging are less likely to develop dementia and live longer than people with a more negative view of aging.

People who consider themselves younger than their actual age also show slower memory decline, better cognitive performance and reduced symptoms of depression, while people who consider themselves older have a higher risk of death.

This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com