The paradox of age: old at 30, young at 70

It’s all a question of age: old at 30 and  young at 70. It’s not a question of being ahead of one’s time (in the first case) or refusing to accept the passage of time (in the second), but rather a shift in mindset amongst Italians. This is revealed in the ‘Human After All’ study by Hearts United (the new global media agency formed from the merger of the two networks Hearts & Science and Mediahub, part of Omnicom Media). 

‘Whilst awareness of ageing is setting in earlier and earlier,’ the study emphasises, ‘the perception of being elderly is receding.’ Conducted by Doxa using the CAWI methodology on a representative sample of 2,000 Italians, the research paints a picture of a country where the years lived and the years perceived seem to tell an increasingly different story.

According to the study, at the age of thirty, ‘it is not the body that changes’ but one’s outlook on the future. Twenty-six per cent of Italians say that it was between the ages of 25 and 34 that they began to think about ageing – the largest age group by far. However, for 13 per cent, this realisation comes even earlier, before the age of 25. In total, more than half of Italians – 51 per cent – say they think about their own ageing ‘at least occasionally’. The research highlights two dimensions that can coexist within the same person: awareness of ageing and the subjective perception of one’s own age. On the one hand, there are the ‘Mindful’, as the research terms the 51 per cent of Italians who say they think, at least occasionally, about their own ageing. On the other hand, there is the phenomenon of the ‘Ageless’: the 49 per cent who, regardless of their chronological age, say they feel younger than their actual age.

“The stages of life have never been defined solely by biology,” emphasises Silvia Leonzi, Professor of the Sociology of Cultural and Communication Processes at Sapienza University of Rome, “ they are also social constructs, linked to expectations, roles and life stages that tell us what goals we should have achieved at a particular stage of our lives. Today, these life trajectories have become far less linear and much more fluid. At thirty, one may already feel behind in relation to models of personal and professional fulfilment that continue to exert strong pressure; after sixty, on the other hand, one may have many years of active life, relationships, projects and new experiences ahead, without identifying at all with the traditional image of old age.”

An awareness of the passing of time spans generations, although it is most prevalent amongst those aged between 45 and 64 and amongst women. At the same time, the perception of feeling younger than one’s actual age, rather than diminishing, increases with age: it applies to 22 per cent of 18–24-year-olds, 37 per cent of 25–34-year-olds, exceeds half amongst 35–44-year-olds (58 per cent) and reaches 62 per cent amongst the over-65s.