What Does It Mean to Be Old Nowadays?

[starshipcat]

Recently I had a rather uncomfortable realization that I am older than either of my grandmothers were at my parents' wedding. To my mind, they were both old, and not just because I was looking at their ages from a much younger perspective. In the photographs in my parents' wedding album, both of them look very much like elders, with wrinkled skin

Comments

[marycatelli]

The retirement age was, in fact, older than the life expectancy in the day.

[starshipcat]

More precisely, the average or typical life expectancy, since these things follow a statistical pattern

The people who did manage to actually reach that age would be a small fraction of the general population, and very few of them would live long enough to collect much of it.

Effectively, it worked like insurance - the government was betting most people wouldn't live long enough to collect it, while individuals were betting they'd be one of the lucky few who would.

[curiouswombat]

I am sitting nodding along as I read. I am approaching 70 - and although I feel 'old' some days when my joints misbehave, generally I still think of myself as middle aged. But by the time she was my age my grandmother was bedridden with arthritis...