The Third Age
Third Age – The Golden Years of Adulthood
By Stephen F. Barnes, Ph.D. San Diego State University The Third Age is now considered by many to be the “golden years” of adulthood. It is generally defined as the span of time between retirement and the beginning of age-imposed physical, emotional, and cognitive limitations, and today would roughly fall between the ages of 65 and 80+. This is a period of adulthood when typically there are fewer responsibilities (e.g., career and family-rearing) than before and, when coupled with adequate financial resources and good physical and psychological health, offers rich possibilities for self-fulfillment, purposeful engagement, and completion. At the individual level, the Third Age can last a few years or as much as two decades or more. Since aging has now become highly contextualized in America there is no set pattern, sequence of events, or progression of steps for navigating this life space. Moreover, the Third Age is relatively new to human history and as a result there is little social understanding about it or general guidance yet from cultural mythmakers---filmmakers, novelists, dramatists, artists. It has been described as a period of developmental ambiguity, time of life that is both old age and not old age (Rubinstein, 2002). For some adults, indeed an increasing number, there can be many positive outcomes related to aging, many of which are explicit during the Third Age. These include relative good health and social engagement (Smith, 2000), functional reserve capacity (Baltes, 1998), knowledge and expertise (Singer, Verhaeghen, Ghisletta, Lindenberger, & Baltes, 2003), and adaptive flexibility in daily living (Riediger, Freund, & Baltes, 2005). At the same time, declines in effortful and resource-intensive cognitive processing are clearly detectable for nearly all adults, despite being launched much earlier in the lifespan. Aging-related deficits, which present moderate to large negative correlations with aging,
By Stephen F. Barnes, Ph.D. San Diego State University The Third Age is now considered by many to be the “golden years” of adulthood. It is generally defined as the span of time between retirement and the beginning of age-imposed physical, emotional, and cognitive limitations, and today would roughly fall between the ages of 65 and 80+. This is a period of adulthood when typically there are fewer responsibilities (e.g., career and family-rearing) than before and, when coupled with adequate financial resources and good physical and psychological health, offers rich possibilities for self-fulfillment, purposeful engagement, and completion. At the individual level, the Third Age can last a few years or as much as two decades or more. Since aging has now become highly contextualized in America there is no set pattern, sequence of events, or progression of steps for navigating this life space. Moreover, the Third Age is relatively new to human history and as a result there is little social understanding about it or general guidance yet from cultural mythmakers---filmmakers, novelists, dramatists, artists. It has been described as a period of developmental ambiguity, time of life that is both old age and not old age (Rubinstein, 2002). For some adults, indeed an increasing number, there can be many positive outcomes related to aging, many of which are explicit during the Third Age. These include relative good health and social engagement (Smith, 2000), functional reserve capacity (Baltes, 1998), knowledge and expertise (Singer, Verhaeghen, Ghisletta, Lindenberger, & Baltes, 2003), and adaptive flexibility in daily living (Riediger, Freund, & Baltes, 2005). At the same time, declines in effortful and resource-intensive cognitive processing are clearly detectable for nearly all adults, despite being launched much earlier in the lifespan. Aging-related deficits, which present moderate to large negative correlations with aging,
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