What’s a decade between friends?

The Japanese prefecture of Nagano has redefined the official classification of ‘old’ from 65 to 75, creating an entirely new generation of adults who are referred to as ‘new-olds’.

How does this work, and should we care?

Most definitely.

Firstly, it’s a precursor of what’s most likely to happen across Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia in the coming years.

Currently, before this mooted classification change, about 30% of Japan’s population of 126 million is/was aged 65 or over – nearly a third now considered old. With a stroke of the pen, Japan can now reinvent itself as one of the slowest aging nations, reducing the percentage of ‘old’ to about 16%.

Whilst other regions are also aging (albeit not as quickly), we can see that there is a massive shift on the way in the next 30 years – and our language around aging may need to be reviewed.

The idea of changing old from 65 to 75 was first raised mooted by Japanese academics and gerontologists in 2017. But now it has been included in government planning and a white paper on the elderly, as well as adopted in Nagano, it has become a reality of the Super Age.

Age As a Construct

That said, there are two significant factors at play here.

First and foremost, is the semantic one.

Age has always been a construct. How we speak of it, how we define others by it is an extremely fluid aspect of our societies. As witness my grandmother Gladys, circa 1979, describing the ‘old girl’ in the next bed of her nursing home - the lady referred to being six months older than my then 80-something Nana. Age is relative, but it also offers a construct through which people are labelled, supported, reviled, encouraged, disrespected, marginalised, segregated – you name it. So peeling the ‘old’ label off a Japanese lady who is 65 and placing it on her neighbor who is 75 is at one level a meaningless exercise.

Unless it informs services, support, policy and other matters.

And here it gets really interesting.

If, at age 65, you qualify as a recipient of an Age Pension, but suddenly you are not ‘old’ for another decade, does your entitlement disappear? Or get reduced, now becoming dependent upon a longer workplace stint? How attractive would it be to cash-strapped treasuries around the world to gain a 10-year breathing space before supplying age-based benefits? Almost irresistible, one imagines.

Back to Nagano.

It does seem the local government has struck a chord. A survey reported in the Japan Times notes that 41% of Japanese respondents believe old age begins at 70, with only 20% supporting the notion it starts at 65.

Maybe that’s the answer, right there – split the difference, and we can truly state, when you get old, what’s five years, between friends?