The Worth: The Ageing Process

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“Looking 40 when you’re 45 is great, but it won’t help you in the long run”


After all, life hasn’t much to offer except youth, and I suppose for older people, the love of youth in others” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Fitzgerald echoes the negative view that Western society holds about the inevitable process of ageing. In this round of The Worth we explore the roots of this negativity by asking respondents how much they would pay to stave off different elements of the process.

Our views on ageing come from a range of concerns, two of which we focus on here. The first, more logical concern is around potential decreases in physical and mental ability when we reach old age. The second concern, on the other hand, looks at the societal pressure to continue to look youthful as you age, which better explains the anxiety that we see surrounding birthday milestones in middle age.

To compare the relative strengths of these two different concerns we asked respondents whether they would pay a certain sum of money to extend their youth – half of the sample paying to look the same as they currently do in 5 years’ time but with the same life expectancy, the other half paying to have 5 extra years of active, healthy life but continuing to look older each year.

We found 50% of Brits would pay £20 to look the same in 5 years, but a significantly higher 77% would pay £20 to have 5 more years of active life. Those paying to extend their active lifespan are also less sensitive to price, decreasing only 4% if the price rises from £20 to £200 while those willing to pay to maintain their appearance decreases 10%.

The fact that 50% of respondents were willing to pay £20 to maintain their appearance for 5 years doesn’t come as a surprise when you consider that anti-ageing products account for 42% of the £1 billion spent in the UK on women’s skincare in 2015; however it may be surprising that women were not significantly more likely to pay, showing men to be equally as vulnerable to these pressures. This focus on the vanity of ageing does however appear to be stronger in the capital, with Londoners twice as likely to pay, above and beyond any impact of income.

The significantly higher proportion willing to pay to extend their active life shows the fear of ageing to be predominantly rooted in the more rational anxiety about the decline in our abilities. Older respondents are more likely to pay as this topic becomes increasingly relevant to them, with 65 year olds 1.5 times more likely to pay than 25 year olds. Those in full-time work are also significantly more likely to pay, beyond the fact that they have a higher income available, indicating that they are already looking forward to a long retirement.

In general, however, it looks as though our fears about our well-being in old age are worse than the reality, as the young and middle-aged perceive lower positive emotions amongst the elderly than the elderly’s own self-reported emotions1. Satisfaction with one’s own ageing is an indicator of positive well-being in later life2 showing that it’s all about the perspective that you take, and I’m personally sticking with Victor Hugo on this one.

When grace is joined with wrinkles, it is adorable. There is an unspeakable dawn in happy old age” – Victor Hugo

1 Santorelli, G. D., Ready, R. E. & Mather, M. A. (2016) “Perceptions of emotion and age among younger, midlife, and older adults”, Aging & Mental Health, Dec 2016

2 Kotter-Grühn, D., Kleinspehn-Ammerlahn, A., Gerstorf, D. & Smith, J. (2009) “Self-perceptions of aging predict mortality and change with approaching death: 16-year longitudinal results from the Berlin Aging Study.”, Psychology and Aging, Vol 24(3), Sep 2009, 654-667

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