middle age

(noun)

The period of life between youth and old age; midlife.

Related Terms

Examples of middle age in the following topics:

  • The Middle Years

    • Middle age is the period of age beyond young adulthood but before the onset of old age.
    • Census lists middle age as including people aged from 35 to 54, while developmental psychologist Erik Erikson argues that middle adulthood occurs from the age of 40 until 65.
    • Middle-aged adults often show visible signs of aging such as the loss of skin elasticity and the graying of hair.
    • Strength and flexibility also decrease throughout middle age.
    • However, the majority of middle-age people in industrialized nations can expect to live into old age.

  • Dividing the lifespan

    • Human life is often divided into various age spans, like the following:
    • In many countries, such as Sweden, adulthood legally begins at the age of eighteen.
    • This is a major age milestone that is marked by significantly different attitudes toward the person who undergoes the transition.

  • The Older Years

    • Old age cannot be exactly defined, but it is often associated with certain activities, such as becoming a grandparent or entering retirement.
    • The boundary between middle age and old age cannot be defined exactly because it does not have the same meaning in all societies.
    • Traditionally, the age of 60 was generally seen as the beginning of old age.
    • He characterizes old age as a period of "Integrity vs.
    • Discuss some of the implications of old age, particularly in relation to Erikson's "Eight Stages of Life" and age discrimination

  • Dimensions of Human Development

    • They are characterized by prenatal development, toddler, early childhood, late childhood, adolescence, early adulthood, middle adulthood, and old age.
    • Middle adulthood generally refers to the period between ages 40 to 60.
    • During this period, middle-aged adults experience a conflict between generativity and stagnation.
    • The last and final stage is old age, which refers to those over 60–80 years.
    • Analyze the differences between the various stages of human life - prenatal, toddler, early and late childhood, adolescence, early and middle adulthood and old age

  • Socially Constructed Interpretations of Aging

    • While aging, itself, is a bio-social process, the ways people and cultures interpret ages (e.g., "old," "young," "mid-life") and the ways these interpretations are distinguished by varied biological age markers vary dramatically.
    • In Western societies, where youth is highly valued, people are considered "old" at much younger ages than in Eastern societies where age is often seen to beget wisdom.
    • In societies where lifespans are relatively short (e.g., Chad) or in areas within a given society where violence and / or other means of "early" death are common, one could be considered "old" or "middle-aged" by her mid-twenties, whereas in countries and social settings with longer lifespans (e.g., Japan) and lower levels of "early" death, mid-twenties is still considered young-adulthood.
    • The activities that are expected of one at different ages is also socially constructed and relative to culture.
    • While age will eventually take its toll on everyone, the association of vigor with youth is a cultural construct and does not necessarily reflect the reality of biological aging.

  • Intergenerational Conflict

    • Intergenerational conflict plays a key role in the conflict perspective of aging.
    • The conflict perspective of aging thus emphasizes competition between generations.
    • The conflict perspective of aging is not solely about resource acquisition.
    • This perspective on aging maintains that whichever generation happens to be middle-aged at any given point in time is the most powerful compared to the old and the young.
    • Power is therefore maintained by the middle-class, perpetuating their monopoly on resources.

  • The Symbolic Interactionist Perspective

    • According to the Symbolic Interactionist Perspective, old age, and aging, are socially constructed and determined by symbols that resemble aging in social interactions.
    • Rather, cultures imbue youth and age with particular meanings.
    • Given the socially constructed nature of age, there are certain behaviors that people typically associate with certain age groups as being "appropriate" or "acceptable" .
    • However, in Chad, the average life expectancy is less than 49 years, and people in their thirties or forties are therefore already considered middle-aged or "old."
    • Many Eastern societies associate old age with wisdom and value old age much more than their Western counterparts.

  • The Social Construction of Aging

    • The social construction of aging entails the creation of social norms and symbols that encapsulates the aging process.
    • Rather, cultures imbue youth and age with meanings.
    • People in their thirties or forties are therefore already middle-aged or "old."
    • Many Eastern societies associate old age with wisdom, so they value old age much more than their Western counterparts.
    • Of course, interactions involving the perception of age must then vary by culture, as different cultures ascribe the notion of age with different values.

  • Aging is Both Biological and Sociological

    • Aging (sometimes spelled as ageing) is both a biological and sociological process wherein human beings experience and accomplish stages of biological and social maturation.
    • An example of the bio-social and objective/subjective nature of aging may be useful.
    • Was this child born lower, middle, or upper class?
    • As a result, this child's biological age (how far from birth one is) may or may not match this child's subjective age (how old he/she feels and what responsibilities develop at what age).
    • Additionally, this child may not align with societal age norms by not doing what society expects the child to do at certain ages.Aging is a complex process of subjective biological and social realities intertwined with relatively objective biological and social standards that shift within and between historical and cultural periods.

  • Continuity Theory

    • Maddox provided an empirical description of the continuity theory in 1968 in a chapter of the book Middle Age and Aging: A Reader in Social Psychology called "Persistence of Lifestyle among the Elderly: A Longitudinal Study of Patterns of Social Activity in Relation to Life Satisfaction. " In 1971, Atchley formally proposed the theory in his article "Retirement and Leisure Participation: Continuity or Crisis?
    • The theory is criticized primarily for its definition of normal aging.
    • The theory distinguishes between normal aging and pathological aging, so it neglects older adults who suffer from chronic illness.
    • The theory also fails to explain how social institutions impact individuals and the way they age.
    • Older adults hold on to many of the beliefs, practices, and relationships they had in the past as they continue to age.