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Redefining Middle Age


            
             As of 2009, the average life expectancy at birth for U.7 years (Minino, Xu, & Kochanek, 2010). If a man is already age 65, his life expectancy is 82, and for a woman who is already age 65, it is 85 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2011d). In 1900 white Americans could expect to live, on average, only to age 47; on average, nonwhites lied to age 33 (Minino, Xu, & Kochanek, 2010). By middle age, women begin to outlive men, a trend that continues through the rest of the life course. And by midlife, various health factors shorten the life expectancy for black men and women (Minino, Xu, Kochanek, 2010). Although the middle of life falls statistically around age 39, we typically consider middle age as extending much later. Indeed, most of us are unsure about which years of life are the middle years. Does middle age begin at 40, 45, or 50? And does middle age end at 60, 65, or 70? The boundaries of midlife have become fluid for the 79 million Americans now at "midlife." Chronological or legal age was used in previous generations to determine where one was in the life course, but subjective or personal age reflects how young or old one perceives oneself to be (Cleveland & Lim, 2007).
             A human body that has been functioning for a number of decades tends to work less efficiently than it did when it was new. At age 50 or 60, the kidneys, lungs, heart, and other vital systems, as well as the sensory organs, are less efficient than they were at 20. Yet across middle adulthood, the physical and cognitive changes that typically occur are, for the most part, not precipitous. .
             Sensory And Physical Changes.
             In most cases, sensory and physical changes in midlife are so gradual that people are often not aware of any changes until they take stock on the fiftieth or sixtieth birthday, at the wedding of a child, at the birth of the first grandchild, at a retirement celebration, upon the death of a parent or spouse, or at some other significant life event.


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