middle age

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.

• Physical Development in Adulthood

  • One can expect a variety of changes to take place through the early- and middle-adult years.
  • During middle adulthood, the aging process becomes more apparent.
  • Middle-aged adults are also at higher risk than younger adults for certain eye problems, such as glaucoma.
  • Hearing also further declines: 14 percent of middle-aged Americans have hearing problems.
  • Review the milestones of physical development in early and middle adulthood

• 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

• Age Structure, Population Growth, and Economic Development

  • This results in a column-shaped age structure diagram with steeper sides.
  • Countries with declining populations, such as Japan, have a bulge in the middle of their age structure diagram.
  • The bulge indicates relatively-few young individuals, and a higher proportion of middle-aged and older individuals.
  • For example, in the Middle East and North Africa, around 65 percent of the population is under the age of 30.
  • The leftmost diagram (representing the age structure of a rapidly-growing population) indicates that the number of individuals decreases rapidly with 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 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.

• Ancient Egyptian Culture

  • The Middle Kingdom was a golden age for ancient Egypt, when arts, religion, and literature flourished.
  • The Middle Kingdom (2134-1690 BCE) was a time of prosperity and stability, as well as a resurgence of art, literature and architecture.
  • In the Middle Kingdom period, due to growth of middle class and scribes, literature began to be written to entertain and provide intellectual stimulation.
  • However, some Middle Kingdom literature may have been transcriptions of the oral literature and poetry of the Old Kingdom.
  • Future generations of Egyptians often considered Middle Kingdom literature to be "classic," with the ultimate example being the Story of Sinuhe.