Abstract
A central issue of the Ageing as Future project investigated the role of expectations, attitudes, and actions toward provision for old age. The chapter addresses how preparation for old age is organized within and across various life contexts, how preparation action depends on desires, worries, and wishes regarding future life, and what are the consequences of preparation activity.
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Keywords
Ageing preparation involves future action. How people prepare for old age is determined on the one hand by individual perceptions and ideas and on the other hand by societal demands and opportunities arising, for example, from social and pension laws. The benefits of a welfare state shape people’s aspirations and expectations when it comes to retirement pensions or long-term care. Therefore, the magnitude, predictability, and sustainability of social welfare are also important for planning and investment of ageing preparation.
Two normative systems interact in preparing for old age: On the one hand, there is the norm of solidarity between the generations, and on the other hand, there is the norm of personal responsibility, according to which everyone must provide for his or her own old age. The controversies resulting from both normative systems are revealed in many social debates, for example, when it comes to the alleged costs of providing for older adults and the presumed resulting burdens for future generations. For these reasons, the issue of preparation for old age is relevant to many people. For example, demographic changes, low birth rates, and rising life expectancies in most countries are challenging the capacity of the welfare state. Accordingly, one consequence may be that many people invest more in material security for later life. Alternatively, if the financial situation appears secure, people are likely to devote more of their preparatory behaviors in other domains of personal life and personal growth. Preparatory action planning represents concrete developmental action through which people can control and shape their life situation in old age, even if only within certain contextual limits (Brandtstädter, 2006; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981). Here, ageing is based on the interplay of individual activities and social opportunity structures (Katz, 2013). The study of ageing preparation thus contributes to the understanding of ageing in general.
Early ageing preparation is generally based on the hope that this will create scope for shaping the late phase of life and enable people to cope better with any challenges they may face. This requires one to consider one’s future, the outlook for a long life, and the circumstances that accompany it at an early stage (Heikkinen et al., 1995; Noone et al., 2009; Preston et al., 2018). In the following sections, we define the two concepts of anticipative preparation action for old age and of preparation-relevant activity based on resource investment and concreteness of future perspective.
Future-related action and anticipative preparation action for old age are conceptually different. Every action is future-related in that it involves the achievement of goals or the realization of desires or plans. Possible long-term consequences of future-related action for old age are, by definition, not in focus of attention. In contrast, anticipative preparation action for old age (APA) explicitly refers to all of a person’s efforts to avert or at least mitigate suspected or anticipated threats and their suspected consequences in one’s future life (e.g., disease, poverty, loneliness) as well as all efforts to bring about or maintain desired events or conditions in the future (Jacobs-Lawson et al., 2004; Kornadt & Rothermund, 2011b). Thus, two perspectives of preparation are distinguished: (1) actions of ageing preparation that aim at long-term consequences in the future (i.e., APA) and (2) actions that primarily aim at desired states or outcomes in the present but that may implicitly entail preparatory relevance or long-term consequences in the ageing process, that is, preparation-relevant action (PRA). For example, many people are physically active because it immediately makes them feel better or healthier. At the same time, it is undisputed that regular physical activity contributes sustainably and preventively to better physical and mental health in the course of ageing.
Preparation-relevant activities (PRA) are defined as actions that are not explicitly undertaken with the goal of preparing for old age, but whose consequences carry long-term preparatory benefits in the future. The practice of a physical activity, such as a sporting game or gardening, can be beneficial to health or even protect against some diseases, but the focus is on a specific action goal in the present. The benefit of such activity arises from and is saturated by its goal pursuit. Many of these everyday activities are relevant to preparation because they have resource-conserving or resource-optimizing consequences that were not intended or considered at start. For example, many activities related to an active lifestyle, a health-conscious nutrition or physical exercise, relate to immediate action goals, but are also known to optimize or conserve personal resources over time. People can, for example, maintain good friendships, avoid risks, or be physically active because such activities seem beneficial or enjoyable per se and without considering the possible consequences for later life or for the future. The possible positive effects of such activities on the course of one’s later life do not have to be intended or calculated. The long-term preventive effects, for example, of a tasty healthy diet, are not necessarily experienced by the actors as preparation or prevention. It can be assumed, however, that these effects are known to the actors and are readily taken along as an additional benefit (Kim-Knauss et al., 2020; Kim-Knauss & Lang, 2021). Still, it is also known that an active lifestyle is considered by many people as an effective strategy of prevention or ageing preparation.
In contrast, anticipative preparation action for old age (APA) is explicitly directed at coping with events, challenges, or burdens that are anticipated or expected in a distant future of one’s life. Anticipatory preparation action requires dealing with possible or expected future challenges and their consequences, which, however, are still unknown and usually not very concrete. Such possible future events also include challenges of ageing that are hard or impossible to predict, such as financial constraints, increased barriers in the living environment, need for long-term care, or end-of-life challenges. However, anticipatory preparation action aims to prevent possible undesirable events, developments, or conditions or to minimize their undesirable effects. For example, if you expect that you will no longer be able to climb the steep stairs in your house due to functional limitations and that this will make it difficult for you to live independently, you may take the precaution of moving into an accessible apartment or having an elevator installed.
Anticipative preparatory action (APA) and preparation-relevant activity (PRA) are analytic distinct concepts that are difficult or impossible to distinguish empirically at the behavioral level or through direct observation. Moreover, each activity can pursue several goals or plans at the same time: People who buy their own home usually have many reasons for doing so. One aim is often to be able to live in one’s private home in a self-determined manner in old age, but often also to pursue specific plans and projects, such as creating value for future generations (Beyer et al., 2017b). The distinction between anticipative preparation action (APA) and preparation-relevant activity (PRA) can be defined at the subjective level based on the respective goals, expectations, and intentions of an acting person. For example, people who eat healthily, inform themselves about nutrition, or exercise a lot may have many reasons for doing so and pursue different goals, such as preventing possible illnesses, out of interest in questions of nutrition or health, or out of the social need to exchange ideas with other people. The decisive factor is whether an act of prevention is linked to the declared goal of preparing for one’s own old age. While anticipative preparation action for old age is mostly directed toward a distant future, it also entails beneficial effect in the present, for example, when people feel relieved of worries and fears about the future by setting aside money for the post-occupational phase of their lives or preparing for future emergencies (Kim-Knauss et al., 2020). If an anticipative preparation action is associated with immediate benefits or advantages in the present, it increases the likelihood that such actions are carried out.
Although only subjectively defined, the psychological difference between anticipative preparation action for old age and preparation-relevant activity can be described along two psychological dimensions: (1) the extent of the resources invested (e.g., financial reserves, purchases, powers of attorney) and (2) the concreteness of respective future perspective. Anticipatory preparatory action is usually aimed at a more distant, less concrete future, but requires a greater investment of resources. Preparation-relevant activities (PRE) are directed toward a relatively concrete future (e.g., here and now) and require comparatively less resource investment. The interplay of future perspectives and resource investment with the different levels of ageing preparation is illustrated by Fig. 4.1.
Levels and determinants of future action and preparation
When one’s own future seems uncertain and not concrete, it is hardly possible to prepare for it. In dealing with such uncertain conditions in the future, however, people can strive to improve their resources and abilities in such a way that they are better able to cope with unexpectedly occurring stressors or challenges. This aspect of anticipative preparation action is referred to in psychology as proactive coping (Aspinwall & Taylor, 1997). This involves enhancing personal resources, skills, and opportunities that can be used to cope with stressors, losses, and crises that may occur. In this regard, preparation-relevant activities are directed toward maximizing desired events in a near and concrete future, whereas anticipative preparation action for old age is directed toward minimizing undesired stressors or challenges in a mostly distant, unknown future.
A central research question of the project Ageing as Future is how thinking about the future affects ageing preparation. Findings indicate that confident and concrete future perspectives are associated with a higher willingness to make preparations (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2014; Kornadt et al., 2018b; Lu et al., 2018; Petkoska & Earl, 2009), whether confidence relates more to future self-views of ageing or to expectations regarding overall societal developments in the future matters. People can be confident about their personal future situation but at the same time pessimistic about society’s future. Both can have an impact on ageing preparation. The relevance of future prospects for ageing preparation can be illustrated by the debates on pension and intergenerational justice, which has been recurring for many decades at least in Germany but also in other countries such as the USA (Achenbaum, 2023).
Anticipative preparation for old age is often narrowed in social debates to the issue of financial security, which is intended to safeguard one’s standard of living in the post-work phase of life. Since the performance of the pay-as-you-go pension insurance system in Germany seems to be at first glance dependent on the number of working contributors (and their contributions), it is easy to understand why the growing number of old-age beneficiaries compared with the shrinking number of contributors is usually seen as a threat to the pension system. In fact, however, it is well documented that macroeconomic productivity gains have outpaced the rising costs of pension insurance many times over from the 1950s to the present in Germany (Erber & Hagemann, 2012). Accordingly, the performance of pension insurance has in principle grown along with it. The question of the intergenerational equity of this system is not infrequently shaped by negative forecasts for the future: There is a threat that the social security and pension systems in Germany are overburdened, for example, because baby boomers are leaving the labor force or because the costs of care are exploding. Thus, since the 1950s, the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL has frequently devoted itself to the topic of “pensions,” usually to announce hard times for future generations of older adults.
If such forecasts proved to be inaccurate in the end, this is usually ignored: Even before the pension reform in 1957, the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL (44/1956) warned of an expected overburdening of pension insurers, since costs would be “... 30 percent higher in 1976 and no less than 42 percent higher in 1986.” Without going into the wrong prognosis of 1956, DER SPIEGEL then reports in 1986 about the good economic situation of the pensioners, only to report again that there will be: “... in twenty, thirty years for the then elderly and old ... will be tight... [and that] ... the gloomy pictures of the future painted by experts, which the pension insurance for the ... time until the turn of the millennium, ... [have] a high degree of probability” (2/1986). Only 13 years later, in 1999, DER SPIEGEL (43/1999) reports on “Wealthy Seniors” and predicts that no generation of pensioners after the “current one” will ever be so well off again, because —from 2020 at the latest—there is a threat of impoverishment in old age. And so on. So far, none of these scenarios have materialized in Germany.
One possible reason is that people may have changed their behavior in response to alarming future scenarios, thus preventing them from occurring. Accordingly, older people are still doing well financially today because many have made personal provisions for themselves. Geoffrey Rose (1981, p. 1850) was the first to propose the situation when a preventive measure “… does not appear to be recognizably beneficial for every individual, but nevertheless shows a social benefit for all” as the prevention paradox. According to this paradox, personal preparations for old age may not have a strong benefit that is apparent to each individual, but it may have a positive effect on society or the pension system in the long run. In the short term, the agents do not experience any direct benefits of their preparatory behaviors for themselves and therefore evaluate them ambivalently. It cannot be ruled out that individual behavior or government measures have helped to avert the announced collapse of pension systems. However, up to date, there is no reliable evidence for this assumption. Moreover, threatening scenarios can unsettle people and discourage them from taking preparatory action measures. It is therefore an important question of how advantageous or burdensome people experience their own ageing preparation.
As a rule, the idea of preparation for old age is based on the principle of personal delayed reward, according to which one practices renunciation in one’s younger years to then reap the reward for these earlier deprivations in late adulthood (Adams & Rau, 2011). Trust in the pension system is built on the fact that it is experienced as reliable even in times of crisis, and it feeds on the message that decades of contributions will one day actually pay off. However, if the reliability of pension systems dwindles, this can also change attitudes toward preparation for old age. Deferring claims or wishes to later in life then becomes less attractive. Why gamble on an uncertain future and accept privations for it if one’s own needs and desires can be satisfied and fulfilled immediately? An increase in such hedonistic attitudes oriented toward the present is evident among young people, for example, according to the Shell Youth Study (Albert et al., 2019). More adolescents than in previous surveys emphasized living their lives in the here and now. Some 80% of young respondents said they “enjoy their lives to the fullest.” Thus, if young people of subsequent generations seem less willing to provide for their own future old age at an early age, the resulting risk of impoverishment could be, at least partly, a consequence of the fears and doubts thus promoted about the capacity of social security and pension funds in the future and the resulting rejection of preparatory investments. This also clarifies that ageing preparation is not just an issue of middle or late adulthood, it concerns and impacts anticipative, future-relevant activity across the entire adult life course. Consequently, the project Ageing as Future investigated and explored ageing preparation in early, middle, and late adulthood.
The issue of ageing preparation is closely related to subjective views of the future. However, these connections have not been comprehensively studied so far, which also has to do with the fact that there is a diverse and inconsistent literature on the different dimensions and facets of subjective future perspective (Lang & Damm, 2018; Lang & Rupprecht, 2019b). Some people respond to an uncertain future with attitudes of devotion to fate (Macé & Le Lec, 2011), while others seek greater control in the face of uncertainty or risk of loss (Barlow et al., 2016; Greenaway et al., 2015). With regard to multiple patterns of experiencing the future, it is important to understand more precisely how people perceive and evaluate their personal futures, how they cope with such perceptions of the future, and how they look ahead or intentionally prepare considering their personal expectations for the future. Kornadt et al. (2015) observed that increasingly positive expectations about one’s future self were accompanied by increased preparation for one’s old age, especially in those areas of life that appear to be vulnerable to age-related changes (see Chap. 3).
What one foresees or expects for one’s own future today can be checked after some time to see whether it has proven to be correct. If you expect before a walk that it will not rain and therefore do not take an umbrella, you will later find out whether your expectation was accurate. Similarly, if a person is convinced to always remain healthy, she or he may revise such convictions in the event of a serious or chronic disease. What we expect may prove to be true or, in the less favorable case, may be revealed as an illusion or at least a wrong forecast. Expectations and attitudes about one’s own future shape the daily behavior and thinking of every individual. In this regard, the so-called Thomas theorem is also relevant for understanding of ageing preparation. The theorem was originally formulated as follows: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928). Whatever a person believes to be true may lead him or her to behave as if his or her beliefs were true. This also holds for personal expectations that people associate with their future. Those who believe in a gloomy future will prepare differently than those who expect a happy, carefree future for themselves. This is not simply a matter of self-fulfilling prophecies, but also about accepting a personal reality as a given and adjusting one’s behavior accordingly. In this context, it can be distinguished between what one expects from the future and how one evaluates such expected future outcomes.
In psychological research, it is considered well established that positive and optimistic future perspectives—at least in the short term—have a positive impact on people’s action and coping resources (Lee et al., 2019; Scheier & Carver, 1985, 2018; Taylor & Brown, 1988). However, some findings suggest that accurate and realistic future expectations, even if associated with a less desirable outcome, have a positive effect on health and life expectancy (Cheng et al., 2009; Chipperfield et al., 2019; Colvin & Block, 1994; Lang et al., 2013). The mere mental examination of one’s future may also have an impact on preparation-relevant action and lifestyle. To test this, Kahana and her colleagues (2005) examined the physical activity levels of older people between the ages of 70 and 100 over a 4-year period at seven measurement occasions. In addition, they recorded how often older adults thought about their future in their daily lives. One finding was that the amount of physical exercise and movement decreased steadily over the 4 years. However, the decline in physical activity was significantly lower the more the older participants had previously thought about their future. Thinking about what might happen in one’s future may lead to engage oneself in healthier behaviors. It may not be that easy though. For example, many studies do not consider whether positive or negative expectations regarding one’s future health turn out to be correct or not (Chipperfield et al., 2019; Hamm et al., 2019).
Furthermore, whether one evaluates an expected future event as desirable or undesirable also plays a role. For example, one may consider the risk of developing dementia to be low for oneself, even though one experiences this disease as very threatening. Thus, future perspectives refer not only to whether or not anticipated life situations are likely in the future, but also to how they are evaluated. One example for such a research question in the Ageing as Future project relates to how old one expects to become and whether one wishes to live as long as one expects (Lang et al., 2007). Lang and Rupprecht (2019a) observed that people who wished for themselves to live slightly longer than expected reported more ageing preparation than those who had unrealistically high wishes for a long life or those who wished for a shorter life.
People often behave in differentiated ways with respect to various dimensions of personal future perspectives such as expectations, time horizons, hopes, or fears (Lang, 2023; Lang & Damm, 2018; Lang & Rupprecht, 2019b). Future perspectives that refer to concrete areas of life or observable facts are easier to check against reality later on than more global assessments of one’s own future. For example, one’s own expectation of still being quite healthy in a few years or still being good friends with a certain person can be easily verified later. In contrast, global expectations, such as that one will still be generally satisfied with one’s life in 5 years, are more dependent on interpretation and can thus be more easily reinterpreted depending on the situation. The findings suggest that specific expectations related to concrete areas of life are more likely to be reflected in relevant ageing preparation than global expectations of the future, which can be changed more flexibly. The ability of individuals to adapt their own subjective interpretations of ageing, such as future-related expectations, to actual circumstances points out to the flexible adaptability of the ageing self (Brandtstädter, 2006). This is especially true when subjective predictions for one’s own future cannot later be verified for accuracy.
How people experience and shape the life phase of old age is ultimately also determined by cultural, structural, physical, and social contextual conditions (Kornadt et al., 2019; Park et al., 2020). To clarify this issue, it is necessary to take a closer look at the culturally embedded social welfare regimes.
4.1 The Questions
The online survey study of the project Ageing as Future focuses on expectations, attitudes, and actions related to preparation for old age and ageing and to personal futures. What ideas do people have about themselves and their personal situation and about societal conditions in the future? And how do these affect the planning and implementation of ageing preparation? The project focused on three central sets of questions devoted to ageing preparation and its motivational anchoring in the context of personal thinking about the future:
A first set of questions deals with the extent to which ageing preparation is experienced, planned, and implemented in a differentiated way depending on life domains and topics. What does ageing preparation mean? To what extent does ageing preparation differ depending on life domain? How is preparation for old age in the life course depending on the specific topics? To what extent are personal deadlines and schedules considered?
A second set of questions deals with the subjective evaluation that people associate with their personal ageing preparation: What benefits do people experience when they prepare for their old age and the future? What costs are associated with it? How is the importance of preparation for old age assessed? To what extent is preparation experienced as something that can be shaped and influenced? To what extent do people see themselves, the family, or society as responsible for domain-specific preparation for old age?
A third set of questions deals with how individuals seek to predict their future life situation: What ideas and wishes do people have with regard to their own life and longevity in the future? How good are people at anticipating their own state of health, wishes, or health in the future? What significance does this have for future action?
For each set of questions, three levels of consideration and analysis were distinguished: (a) differences in ageing preparation as a function of life domains (e.g., finances, health, or family); (b) differences in ageing preparation between and among young, middle-aged, and older adults; and (c) cultural and welfare state influences on ageing preparation (based on comparisons of the USA, Germany, and Hong Kong).
4.2 The State of Research
The diversity of old age and ageing processes in modern welfare states means that there are no uniform and established structures and norms for the life phase of old age. This can be seen, for example, in the fact that terminological designations for the various life phases between the ages of 50 and 120 are often missing or imprecise. In this context, scholars and experts sometimes refer to middle, late, older, old, or very old adulthood to delimit different age ranges. However, precise classifications of various phases of ageing do not exist in the scientific literature. For example, the life phase of very old age is used in various publications to refer to the 75+ age group, sometimes to the 85+ age group, or to the 90+ age group and occasionally to refer to a low degree of functional capacity (e.g., frailty). One reason for this is that the chronological age of a person hardly allows conclusions about what stressors, challenges, or capacities are present in this person.
This also applies when people report about when they think old age begins or at what age someone is considered “old” (Tuckman & Lorge, 1953; Unsworth et al., 2001). This is all the more the case when people consider such questions concerning various life domains (see in detail Chap. 3). Accordingly, ageing preparation may differ depending on specific age-related challenges and life domains. One solution to this issue is to classify the life phases of adulthood based on frequently observed and normative changes. Such changes may be age-associated when they are known to occur more frequently in older people than in younger people. Changes are typically described as age-dependent because they are necessarily linked to a specific chronological age or life phase. Examples of age-associated changes include widowhood or changes in physical functioning that can—at least in theory—occur at all ages. Examples of age-dependent changes involve events such as reaching the statutory retirement age, or grandparenthood which becomes possible only when one’s children have reached a certain age. Age-associated and age-dependent changes co-jointly contribute to the course, direction, and diversity of ageing phenomena.
In line with such considerations, the distinction between the life phase of the “Third Age” and the life phase of the “Fourth Age” was established in ageing research (Baltes & Smith, 2003). The Third Age follows on from the “Second Age,” the life stage of adulthood after reaching the age of majority. The Third Age is usually associated with an active lifestyle and high functioning. The concept of the Fourth Age, on the other hand, refers to the phase of increasing vulnerability, increased functional limitations, concurrent chronic diseases, or the need for long-term care (Kruse, 2017). In general, it has not proven useful to divide the Third and Fourth Age phases based on a person’s actual chronological age. It is not uncommon for very old people to still show high functioning and lifestyles as those usually associated with the Third Age (Lang et al., 2021), while the Fourth Age can also start much earlier for some people (Laslett, 1994).
Does Ageing Preparation Contribute to a Better Life in Old Age?
The study of preparatory and future action planning is a young topic that has gained greater interest and attention in research in recent years. This implies that there are no long-established instruments for assessing ageing preparation. Thus, changes and consequences of preparatory behaviors have not yet been examined over longer time intervals. As a result, there are few longitudinal studies in which the possible influences of ageing preparation on the quality of life in old age were investigated over long time intervals. The findings of such studies indicate that people who prepared for changes in ageing at an early stage showed generally higher well-being in the later course of ageing (Noone et al., 2009; Prenda & Lachman, 2001) or showed better mental health (Sörensen et al., 2012; Yeung & Zhou, 2017).
In an exemplary study from the USA (Noone et al., 2009), over 1000 married men and women were asked shortly after retirement about their health and well-being and how much they had already prepared for retirement. After 12 years, the same individuals were surveyed again regarding health and well-being. It was surveyed whether the respondents had talked about retirement with their spouse more often, whether they had made financial preparations, and whether they had learned about retirement planning options. It was found that the above three preparatory activities were associated with later increased well-being. In a study from Hong Kong (Yeung, 2013), 90 employees were surveyed about their ageing preparation and psychological well-being about 6 months before and after retirement. Preparatory actions were surveyed in four areas: financial (e.g., savings plans), health (e.g., physical activity), social participation (e.g., leisure activities), and information seeking (e.g., retirement courses). All preparatory actions were positively correlated with indicators of well-being. However, in this context, only those who sought information before retirement reported significantly improved well-being and more positive attitudes toward retirement, even after 1 year.
In summary, it can be stated that findings are not consistent and in part contradictory. However, it is apparent that ageing preparation has positive consequences: How positive such effects turn out depends on many conditions, such as the life domain or the life situation targeted by preparation action. For example, findings differ according to whether well-being was assessed shortly after retirement or at a later time and the extent to which specific life domains are also considered. To date, studies on impact of retirement planning have mostly focused on specific topics such as financial security, health care, or end of life preparation. Also, such topics of ageing preparation were usually examined in isolation and separately. For the first time, the project Ageing as Future examined the effects of ageing preparation on well-being simultaneously for various domains of life (e.g., finances, care, social integration).
Does It Matter Which Life Domain One Prepares for?
The subjective experience of ageing is context-dependent and may thus differ depending on the domain of life, for example, with regard to the family versus the work or health situation. The variety of life domains and tasks makes it difficult to exhaustively cover all preparation-relevant or preparation actions, especially since people’s life contexts differ not only by origin, biography, and life situation, but also because they may change individually in the course of adulthood. Thus, when considering some life domains such as finances, housing, social integration, or health care, such contexts are representative of the variation of everyday contexts of ageing and old age. What needs to be clarified is the extent to which future-related action and ageing preparation differ depending on the life domain or whether it follows common or similar rules across all domains.
The diversity of ageing experience is also reflected in domain-specific timing of ageing-associated change: in some life domains the experience of ageing may be perceived earlier (e.g., physical fitness) than in other domains (e.g., housing situation). Therefore, it makes a difference whether the focus is on ageing preparation regarding the first years after the end of employment or on ageing preparation regarding the end of life. In addition, some age-associated changes go along with increased challenges or particular risks under certain living conditions such as poverty, social exclusion, loneliness, physical barriers in the living environment, or need for long-term care. The respective life domains can change differently and independently in the course of ageing, also depending on the respective personal preferences and priorities of the acting actors.
Looking at different domains of ageing preparation, such as finances, health care, and social participation, previous findings show that within each domain ageing preparation domain-differentially depends on the respective domain-specific views on old age (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2011b, 2014; Kornadt et al., 2019; Park et al., 2020, cf. Chap. 3). Positive expectations for the future self are thus not generally associated with increased ageing preparation, but only in those life domains that appear to be particularly flexible and controllable, such as social relationships and leisure activities. Those who have positive expectations for themselves in the future in terms of friendships, family, or leisure activities also report preparing more for them. In contrast, positive expectations about one’s own financial or health situation in the future are not associated with increased preparation action planning (Kornadt et al., 2015). It is also important to note that future-related expectations of one’s own self and preparation action are associated quite differently depending on the life domain.
Viewed over a longer period of life, there are no effects of change in preparation action on increased positive future perspectives: Those who make more preparations do not seem to develop significantly more positive expectations for their future over time. However, positive future views in the domains of social relationships and leisure activity were associated with increased preparation action in these domains over time. For example, when expecting positive relationships in the future, such participants were more likely to also increase their investment in relationship-related preparatory activities in the following years. Thus, ageing preparation may reflect an effort to shape and improve one’s personal future life in accordance with one’s views on ageing.
Ageing preparation is often oriented toward life goals that lie in a distant and mostly not very concrete future. In this vein, motivational psychological processes play a critical role. It should be considered that ageing-related action is often accompanied by two opposing valences—the expression and intensity of which differ from person to person: on the one hand, there is a hope for ageing well, for example, the hope to remain healthy and active. On the other hand, there is also a fear of loss or burden that one would like to avoid. Consequently, it needs to be clarified to what extent ageing preparation is motivated by hopes and expectations of gains or by efforts to counteract one’s own fears and anxieties about losses (Lang & Rohr, 2013; Rohr & Lang, 2016).
Overall, ageing preparation and preparation-relevant action depend on the extent to which individuals subjectively construe their future in multifaceted and differentiated ways. In this context, it is possible to examine connections between preparation action and specific dimensions of one’s subjective future perspective, for example, with regard to (a) one’s own remaining lifetime, (b) the extent to which this future appears to be concrete and plannable, (c) the question of whether one expects an improvement or deterioration in the future for oneself or for others, and (d) the personal deadlines that one sets for oneself in order to make timely preparations for old age.
What Are Age Differences in Ageing Preparation and Future-Related Action?
Ageing preparation and preparation-related action are usually biographically anchored, insofar as many historical events, societal changes, and also personal life circumstances have a very diverse impact on how people perceive and evaluate their personal future. For example, whether people have ever experienced war, hardship, or even disaster could also play a role in preparatory action (Hobfoll et al., 1991). Park et al. (2005) asked older people about the most traumatic event in their lives to date and what they learned for themselves from it. One finding is that those who were able to interpret this experience positively for themselves in retrospect had less fear of death overall and showed more active forms of coping when dealing with future challenges.
In this respect, age differences in ageing preparation often reflect the particular life circumstances of the respective birth cohorts. Second, age differences can also be attributed to societal change over time. Earlier generations may have relied more often on welfare state support than generations of older adults today. At the same time, there may also occur changes in future-related action over the course of a person’s lifetime as a result of personal experience. Finally, third, when one’s remaining time in life decreases, this also results in changes of one’s ageing preparation and preparation-related action (Kim-Knauss & Lang, 2021; Kornadt et al., 2018b).
Are There Cultural Differences in Ageing Preparation and Future-Related Action?
Cultural influences on ageing preparation often pertain to differences in welfare regimes and socio-structural opportunities (Hershey et al., 2007). For example, Germany has different systems of public social and health care as compared to countries such as Hong Kong or the USA (Achenbaum, 2023). In Germany, pension, social security, health, and long-term care insurance are required by law. In Hong Kong, for example, pension insurance is predominantly company-based and private. Only since 1995 have employers in Hong Kong been obliged to pay into a Mandatory Provident Fund (MPF) for all their employees. In addition, all employees above a certain income level (approx. EUR 1000) are obliged to pay up to 5% of their income into a pension fund. In contrast, there is no public pension scheme in Hong Kong, although it is often expected to receive financial support from one’s children in old age (Chou et al., 2015). The cultural and structural frameworks in different countries also differ concerning other areas and topics of preparatory action, for example, when it comes to organizing care in old age, housing, social participation, or end-of-life care. To date, there is a lack of systematic comparative overviews of the various care offerings and models in the areas of care, housing, participation, or medical care across different countries such as the USA, Germany, or China.
According to results from the Ageing as Future project, it appears that in the USA and Germany, people are engaging slightly more in ageing preparations than people in Hong Kong in most life domains under investigation (emergencies, financial protection, fitness, health, housing, leisure, relationships, and work). In contrast, respondents in the USA and Germany showed little or no culture-related differences (Kornadt et al., 2019). In general, the observed differences across countries tended to be somewhat small in young adulthood and, in contrast, were more accentuated in older adults. This suggests that cultural differences in ageing preparation emerge over the course of life, for example, because people internalize and adopt the specific norms and conventions of their respective culture over time or also because cultural norms and conventions were more deeply embedded in the early years of older birth cohorts. The cultural differences between the Western and the Eastern culture are often discussed in connection with different value orientations, for example, with regard to the role of the family (Fung & Jiang, 2016), but may also have to do with different welfare regimes and social security systems, which are virtually non-existent in Hong Kong, for example.
4.3 Overview of the Findings
The online survey study of the project Ageing as Future focuses on the question of when and how ageing preparation is planned, implemented, and carried out in different life domains and to what extent such preparation action differs depending on age, culture, and contextual conditions. First, we explored the extent to which people engage in preparation activities in different life domains. Second, we assessed the perceived personal deadlines of preparation, the subjective personal benefits, and the burdens of engaging in concrete ageing preparation activities in various life domains across cultures. In addition, several dimensions of thinking and acting about the future were surveyed, including, for example, the subjective perspective on the future and the subjective and ideal life expectancy.
4.3.1 Assessing Ageing Preparation and Future-Related Action
As part of the research project Ageing as Future, ageing preparation was assessed using various methods and for different life domains. In the questionnaire study, ageing preparation was assessed using newly developed scales consisting of 27 questions on preparation for old age in new life domains (Kornadt & Rothermund, 2014; Kornadt et al., 2015, 2018b). Here, respondents were asked about actions to prepare for their financial situation, the occurrence of emergency or exceptional situations, mental and physical fitness, housing situation, appearance and looks, personal relationships and social contacts, health, employment opportunities and living arrangements, and work activities in old age. For each preparation domain, respondents were asked three questions to report how much preparation they took in each domain, how much they were concerned with it, and how much they read about it. A short version of this questionnaire with a total of 11 questions was also developed, whereby the domain of personal relationships was additionally expanded to include the domain of family and close relationships, and the domain of employment opportunities and leisure time activities was expanded to include the domain of personality and life management (Kornadt et al., 2020). Initially, the question here is not in how many different domains anticipative preparation action can be found, but rather how preparatory action differs in the different domains.
In a second part of the project, additional dimensions and aspects of ageing preparation and preparatory-related activities were assessed in an online survey. First, respondents reported which preparatory-relevant activities they had engaged in and how often within a year. The selection of these preparatory-relevant actions was derived from the known research and findings on preparation for old age (Kim-Knauss & Lang, 2021).
In addition to actual activities of ageing preparation, the online study also investigated by which point in their lives people of different age and culture plan to start preparation action at the latest. Such perceived personal deadlines for ageing preparing were related to five specific domains: the financial situation, housing, care, avoiding loneliness, and dying and death (Lang & Rupprecht, 2020). Do differences by age and culture exist in the timing of subjective deadlines of ageing preparation in different domains, respectively?—In order to clarify these questions, subjects could be asked about different domains of ageing preparation using graphical scales (see Fig. 4.2) to indicate from when and until when they believe that one should have started with preparation action in the respective area, for example, financial provision, provision for housing in old age, preparation for care needs, preparation against loneliness in old age, and preparation for dying and death. Finally, for each of the five domains examined, questions were also asked about the subjective usefulness, controllability, and importance of one’s own ageing preparation (Kim-Knauss & Lang, 2021). In addition, various domains and dimensions of attitudes toward the future were recorded, such as the expected and desired duration of one’s own life and the subjective perspective on the future (Lang & Rupprecht, 2019b; Rohr et al., 2017).
Age differences in ageing preparation for the third and fourth ages
Note: adapted from Kornadt & Rothermund, 2014; shown are the deviations per age group from the average value (= gray dotted) of the respective preparatory actions for the third and fourth ages
4.3.2 Ageing Preparation in Different Life Domains
As the findings of the Ageing as Future project on views on ageing have shown (cf. Chap. 3), people differ not only in terms of their respective ideas about old age but also depending on what life domain is at stake, for example, regarding ideas about family life in old age, work, social engagement, or even health. In addition, many people’s views vary depending on what circumstances of old age they are considering. For example, it makes a difference whether one imagines life circumstances during the first 5 years after retirement, or whether one reflects imagines circumstances in late life with frailty, or life circumstances at the end of life.
The diversity of ageing is also reflected in the fact that changes often do not follow a fixed chronological sequence or direction of change: they sometimes go upward, sometimes downward, sometimes are stable, or sometimes unstable or fluctuating. Such diversity of ageing can be observed both within the population and also between the various life domains of one individual, for example, with regard to health, housing situation, family situation, or financial situation. For instance, you can feel young in the context of your family, but not when you think about your physical fitness or health. So, what are people preparing for when they prepare for old age? Are they preparing for specific challenges in specific life domains, and are there life domains in which significantly fewer preparatory actions are observed? Are there similar patterns across different life domains in the individual domain-specific preparatory actions that relate to similar life circumstances, such as proximity to the end of life or, alternatively, living arrangements at the beginning of retirement?
In some life domains such as physical fitness, health, and family, individuals report to be more pronounced and intensively engaged in ageing preparation. In other domains of life related to work or leisure, individuals reported comparatively less strong engagement in ageing preparation (Kornadt et al., 2020). Altogether, older adults generally report more preparation action than younger adults (Kornadt et al., 2019), although this age difference is more pronounced in the USA than in Germany and Hong Kong.
Another central finding of the project on Ageing as Future is that ageing preparation differs depending on the specific context of preparation, for example, depending on whether it involves issues related to preparing for the third age or issues related to preparing for the fourth age (see Fig. 4.2, cf. Kornadt & Rothermund, 2014). Preparation for the third age aims at activities that enable an experience of personal growth, such as through the organization of an active leisure life, lifestyle, physical fitness, and social participation. In contrast, preparation for the fourth age is more often aimed at actions that can still maintain quality of life, for example, in the event of emergency situations, physical or health limitations, or even at the end of life. Such ageing preparations for the third and fourth ages differ depending on chronological age and life circumstances. Ageing preparations for the third age are reported more frequently by younger people than preparations for the fourth age. The older people are, the more frequently they report ageing preparation. It is suggested that with increasing age, individuals engage in those preparation activities that are directed on issues and challenges of the respective next phase of life, that is, the third or fourth age. For example, third-age preparation activities were most frequently reported among adults between the ages of 60 and 70. Fourth-age ageing preparation was more frequently reported among adults between the ages of 70 and 80. Such age differences can be attributed in part to differences in people’s future time horizons. The less time people believe they have in their own lives, the more they were concerned with preparations for the fourth age (Kornadt et al., 2018b), but also with preparing for dying and death (Lang & Rupprecht, 2019a). However, the experience of a subjectively limited lifespan only has a beneficial effect on those preparation actions that are dedicated to preparing for the fourth age, but not on actions that serve to prepare for the third age. This effect of the remaining lifetime being experienced as limited was also shown in the change over the period of the study: if the remaining lifetime was experienced as shorter, this was accompanied by increased preparation for the fourth age, i.e., for possible emergencies or health crises, but not by increased preparation for the third age.
Age differences in the extent of third-age ageing preparation were accounted by dimensions of future thinking, in particular the concreteness of the future perspective (Kornadt et al., 2018b). The concreteness of the subjective future perspective refers to how precise people’s ideas are regarding their goals and expectations for the future, for instance, to what extent there are already plans, wishes, and aspirations for the future that can be explicitly named. Those who have a more concrete perspective on the future are more likely to show preparatory actions that serve to prepare for the third age, i.e., for leisure and lifestyle, for example. One possible explanation here is that for many people, preparing for the third age is about expanding their self-determined options for action, which at the same time go hand in hand with a broader and more open time horizon (Petkoska & Earl, 2009).
There were also cultural differences between Western cultures such as Germany and the USA and the Eastern cultures in Hong Kong and Taiwan with regard to specific life domains of ageing preparation. In general, fewer preparatory actions are reported in Hong Kong than in the USA and Germany. In contrast, the differences in preparatory actions between Germany and the USA were minor with few exceptions: Preparatory actions related to housing and to physical appearance were slightly more prevalent in the USA than in Germany (Kornadt et al., 2019). Such cultural differences in preparatory behavior for old age, especially for financial and leisure-related domains, were partly due to individual differences in perspectives on the future and expectations about the future self. For example, American and German individuals were more likely than Hong Kong individuals to expect that they would still have sufficient financial means and an active leisure life in old age. Those who had more negative expectations about their future showed a lower propensity to engage in preparation action, explaining some of the differences across cultures (Kornadt et al., 2019). Specifically, this means that differences between countries are smaller when comparing individuals with similar future expectations.
It can be concluded that personal ageing preparation varies according to life domains and cultural context, although some of the cultural differences can also be attributed to differences in future-related views and also in response to COVID-19 worries (Kim-Knauss et al., 2022). In addition, more individuals were found to have concrete ideas about their future in the USA than in Germany and Hong Kong. In all cultures, it was observed that individuals with more concrete views of the future were more engaged across all domains of ageing preparation. Increased preparation action is thus associated overall with a concrete and positive outlook on the future. It was also suggested that negative future scenarios of one’s own ageing tend to inhibit the extent of ageing preparation (Kornadt et al., 2015). This points to the issue whether future perspectives can also explain and predict differences in the timing of preparatory action over the life course.
4.3.3 Timing of Ageing Preparation Over the Life Course
Another central research topic of the Ageing as Future project is the subjective timing of ageing preparation: When do people believe that there is an appropriate time in life to start preparing for their own old age? Such normative notions of the timing of ageing preparation reveal how people shape their lives and ageing in accordance with the possibilities and limitations of their life circumstances and contexts (Brandtstädter & Rothermund, 2003; Heckhausen, 1999). The personal deadlines within which preparation for old age is planned are an essential component of the temporal structuring of life, which also reflects how people flexibly adjust and adapt to different contexts and domains of preparation. For example, one can surmise that some people assume that at some point in life it is simply too late to prepare adequately for old age in financial terms. For other domains, such as preparing for end of life, some people refuse to deal with this in early or middle adulthood and accordingly consider it sufficient to start ageing preparation sometime later in life.
In the online study, we used graphical scales based on a schematic life ray to represent the time between the beginning and end of life. For each of the graphical life rays, it was possible to freely move a slider to indicate one’s response to the respective item. For example, respondents indicated at what point in time they consider old age to begin (Fig. 4.3). With the use of graphical scale items, it was possible to circumvent normative responses revolving around overlearned and well-known legal age limits such as mandatory retirement age in Germany.
Graphical life ray for the question: At what point in life is one old?
The graphical representation of the life ray scale was fixed to values ranging from 0 to 100. This way, each point selected on the line with the slider corresponds to a proportion of the subjectively expected lifespan and could thus be converted into calendar age in years using the formula: “selected point on life ray divided by 100 times the subjectively expected lifespan in years.” This way it was possible to compare the responses on when the life phase of old age begins between the various cultures based on a calculation of years (Table 4.1).
One may wonder to what extent the use of such a “graphical life ray” scale is at all capable of validly representing meaningful age responses. To test this, all participants also indicated their own current position with a slider between the beginning and the end of their life on a separate graphical life ray scale. The responses on their current age position obtained with this graphical life ray scale were almost identical to the chronological ages of the respondents and correlated with a value of 0.90. This means that the life position data quite correctly accounted for more than 80% of the variance of actual age differences among all participants. However, the deviations from actual age were also significant insofar they indicated the subjective life position of the respondents, such as when someone feels younger than their actual age (Rubin & Berntsen, 2006). For example, the midpoint position of 50 on the life ray corresponded to a chronological age of 44.6 years. Then, over the course of the study after 6 years, the mean position of all respondents was on average about 7.7 points (SD = 8.0) closer to the end of life. It can be seen from this that the graphic life ray is suitable for reflecting age-related changes in a sensitive and valid way.
On average across all respondents, the item at what point on the life ray one is old was set at approximately to 78.1 on the scale ranging from 0 to 100 (SD = 12.2). Since the average expected life span was a mean age of 83.2 years (SD = 9.9), this value corresponds to a beginning of old age at 65.0 years. Table 4. shows the points for the onset of old age separately by age group and culture. In Hong Kong and Taiwan, the points on the life ray chosen to indicate the beginning of old age were earlier than in the Western culture. Respondents from the USA in all age groups moved the sliders closes to the right-handed side indicating a later onset of old age than respondents from all other countries.
When comparing these results with earlier studies on this issue, dating back to the 1950s, it seems that there are only few historical variations (Kastenbaum, 1984). In a US study by Tuckman and Lorge (1953), young adults under 20 years of age reported the onset of age at approximately 65 years and adults over 70 years reported the onset of old age at 71 to 73 years. In a study conducted in the 1970s (Drevenstedt, 1976), the onset of old age was 61 to 63 years among young adults and 68 to 72 years among older adults. In a similar Japanese study from the 1990s, old age onset for young adults was 64 years and 71 to 72 years on average among old adults (Hori, 1994). However, recent studies clarified that the onset of old age differs significantly depending on what life domain is being considered (i.e., work, family, leisure activities, for example), at least in Western countries (see also Chapter 3.3.4, Kornadt & Rothermund, 2011b).
Personal Deadlines of Ageing Preparation
The graphical scales were used to capture the perceived personal deadlines to begin with ageing preparation in of each of five domains (Lang & Rupprecht, 2020). In this online questionnaire, respondents could move two sliders to indicate what time frames they thought were optimal to begin ageing preparation in the respective domain (see Fig. 4.4).
Graphical life ray to capture preparation for old age deadlines
The positions of the two sliders could be freely set on the graphic life ray. The left slider could be used to indicate where the earliest good time in life would be to start preparing for old age. The right-hand slider was used to set when the latest and just good time in life would be to have started preparing for old age in the respective area. In total, these personal deadlines for preparation for old age were assessed for five life domains and in the five countries Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA, Germany, and the Czech Republic. In Germany, these personal deadlines were assessed in four surveys to clarify how the personal deadlines changed between time points in the individual preparation domains.
Also, regarding the information on personal deadlines by which one should start preparing for old age, significant differences emerged depending on the life domain of preparation as well as between the five countries considered (Lang & Rupprecht, 2020). Figure 4.5 provides an overview of the time windows chosen by respondents for starting to prepare for old age in five preparatory domains, separated by country and by age group.
Personal deadlines for starting to prepare for old age in five preparation domains
Note: 2018 survey; shown are the mean values of the start and end points of the time frames in each preparation domain. Young 18–44 years, middle-aged 45–64 years, old >65 years
As a tendency, older adults tend to set their ageing preparation deadlines earlier than younger adults. Regarding preparation for housing, need for care, social participation, and dying and death, older adults prefer to start ageing preparing at the latest by the beginning of the last third of their life course, while younger adults find a later start of ageing preparation appropriate for these life domains. Only in terms of financial preparation for old age does the age difference reverse: Here, younger adults prefer an earlier start of ageing preparation than older adults. In many other domains, being older was associated with the preference that ageing preparation should start at latest before retirement.
Differences also emerged between the various domains of ageing preparation: For example, financial preparation was seen as something that should best be started in the first quarter of life, or at the latest shortly after midlife, around age 50. By comparison, most respondents felt that personal preparations for dying and death were best started in midlife. However, there are considerable age differences with regard to deadlines, with these age differences showing up more clearly in the deadlines for the latest still appropriate start of preparatory actions and hardly at all in the starting points of the time windows for personal deadlines.
Finally, the next step was to compare the personal deadlines between the participating countries Hong Kong, Taiwan, the USA, Germany, and the Czech Republic. Figure 4.5 shows that timelines for preparation for old age differ among the five countries, with the Chinese countries of Hong Kong and Taiwan being more similar than the USA, Germany, and the Czech Republic in terms of timing of preparation for old age over the life course.
Overall, the time windows chosen for the start of ageing preparation in Hong Kong and Taiwan were significantly narrower in most areas and tended to be somewhat earlier, with one exception: for preparation for housing in old age, the deadlines in both Hong Kong and Taiwan were chosen in broader time windows with a later end. This may also have to do with the fact that it is more common in these countries for older people to be cared for by their family members in old age or to move into the household of their adult children. In contrast, in Germany, preparations for housing in old age often relate, for example, to moving to institutions or home remodeling (Beyer et al., 2017a, b). Cultural differences also reflect differences in the availability of specific services in the respective countries.
Regarding other domains of preparation for old age, on the other hand, respondents from China reported narrower time windows for personal deadlines within which preparation should be started, for example, for the need for care, social participation, or even dying and death. In contrast, the time windows for deadlines for the same preparation domains were chosen more broadly in the USA and Europe. It is striking that the younger adults from Germany chose the earliest possible start for preparations for the need for care situation in old age, with deadlines similarly early as for financial preparations. It stands to reason that the high cost of nursing care in Germany in particular plays a key role here and that this also explains the need to start preparing for nursing care in old age as early as possible.
The observed age differences in preparation for old age reflect the requirements of the different life phases within the respective cultural context to which people adapt their preparation plans. Those who have reached an older age may, in retrospect, assess preparing for the financial situation in old age somewhat more loosely than in younger years, but instead emphasize, for example, the need for more long-term and better early preparation for social participation, need for care, and housing.
Many younger adults, on the other hand, may regard the financial situation in old age as the most urgent challenge for the future of old age, for which preparation should therefore be made as early as possible. In contrast, younger adults consider other tasks of preparing for old age to be less urgent and still solvable in later stages of life. Overall, the subjective timelines for preparation for old age demonstrate the context-dependence of ageing preparation, which adjusts and adapts individually, age and culture specifically to the respective requirements and conditions of ageing.
Finally, the question of whether the chosen deadlines for preparation for old age changed over time was also of interest. For Germany, the chosen deadlines in all five examined preparation domains proved to be relatively stable over the 6-year period with only a few changes: More generally, the deadlines for the earliest time of onset were set only about 2 to 3 points earlier for each time point, whereas the deadlines for the latest time remained almost unchanged and, after statistically controlling for other influences, were set only about half a point earlier for each time point (Lang & Rupprecht, 2020).
The temporal structure of ageing preparation also points to another significant issue, namely, the possibility that people move outside normative expectations in their preparatory actions. For example, according to the prevailing norm (see Fig. 4.5), someone may start preparing for old age too early or even too late in the view of many people and thus deviate from the expectation. Those who prepare for old age too early may hear from their immediate environment that this is not necessary after all and is premature: “You still have all the time in the world” and “Don’t worry about it.” Conversely, those who, after many years of working life, do not make any preparations for old age and who do not build up reserves, frequently change their place of residence and social environment, and live in the here and now, will probably occasionally hear or ask themselves the question of how things are to continue in later life. Such deviations from normative expectations of preparation for old age also raise the question of why one should invest time and resources in preparing for one’s old age in the first place. What subjective benefits and perhaps also costs do people associate with their preparatory actions?
4.3.4 Subjective Benefits and Evaluation of Ageing Preparation
When people prepare for their old age, they are investing time and personal resources in an uncertain future that leaves open the extent to which the expectations, wishes, and goals of the preparatory actions will ever be achieved. In addition, there may also be undesirable consequences or side effects of preparatory actions: Those who set aside money for old age, for example, forgo fulfilling a wish right away and accept that there may be an economic crisis or monetary devaluation that wipes out the reserves. Every preparatory action is accompanied by expectations, experiences, or even attitudes that concern the subjective benefits or the subjective costs of preparation in the future, but also in the present. The subjective benefit of preparatory actions can, for example, consist in the fact that—by preparing for old age—one expects to retain more autonomy and independence, to relieve the burden on other people or oneself, or to obtain more security. The subjective costs of preparatory actions can relate to the fact that one limits oneself in everyday life, that one experiences burdens, or that one risks that preparatory actions prove to be useless in the end.
In addition, it happens that people postpone important tasks in order to get relief from time or task pressure in the present and thus gain time for other tasks and plans. As a result, postponing tasks to a later time leads to getting a quick benefit right now. This behavior is often accompanied by an attitude or mindset in which people subjectively devalue or even suppress the costs or burdens that arise later as a result of postponing or deferring. In psychological literature, this phenomenon is also referred to as temporal discounting, because possible consequences of (non-)action for one’s future are not considered or are even suppressed. On the other hand, those who are willing to forego quick benefits for later rewards show a strong future preference in this sense. In contrast, we speak of present preference when people prefer the immediate benefits of their actions to possible future benefits (Löckenhoff, 2011; Zimbardo & Boyd, 2009).
How people evaluate the benefits and costs of certain preparatory actions for themselves or other people in their environment can therefore vary greatly depending on their life circumstances and conditions. To this end, the project Ageing as Future investigated how people experienced the benefits and costs of their own preparatory actions (Kim-Knauss et al., 2020): The benefits of preparation for old age encompassed the extent to which preparation contributes to maintaining one’s own independence, providing relief for others, and giving oneself a sense of increased security. The subjective costs referred to the extent of experienced burden and risks associated with preparatory action in the respective life domains.
In most life domains, older people experience more personal benefits in their preparatory activities than younger respondents, although these age differences are more pronounced in the USA, Germany, and the Czech Republic. There are also domain-specific age differences regarding the experienced costs of preparatory action when it comes to subjective restrictions, burdens, or risks. In particular, when it comes to preventing loneliness, preparing for care, and preparing for dying and death, older people experience more burdens and risks than younger adults. This may be because older people also have more experience with the vagaries of caregiving, of personal relationships over the life course, and also in terms of powers of attorney, wills, and inheritance when it comes to dying and death. However, cultural differences between countries also play a role. In the two Chinese countries, for example, more subjective costs and burdens are associated with preparing for old age in most life domains, with the exception of housing, whereas in Western countries, greater emphasis is placed on the subjective benefits of making one’s own preparations in these domains (cf. Fig. 4.6).
Subjective benefits and subjective costs of personal preparatory actions in five life domains, by age group and country
Note: 2018 survey; shown in T values with 95% confidence intervals around the mean (solid line). The dashed lines indicate the range of values of half a standard deviation (±5). Young 18–44 years, middle-aged 45–64 years, old >65 years
In a further step, we examined the extent to which the subjective benefits of preparatory action relate to one’s own self or to other people. Some of the subjective benefits of ageing preparation involve, for example, a relief from worries or serve to safeguard autonomy. Other benefits, on the other hand, relate to close relatives and their relief, to intergenerational cohesion or to the prevention of conflicts. In the comparison of the USA, Germany, and Hong Kong, there were clear and expected differences in this regard (Kim-Knauss et al., 2020): While in Hong Kong there was hardly any difference between self-related benefits of preparatory action and the subjective benefits for others, in Germany and the USA, the self-related benefits clearly outweighed the benefits related to others.
In all cultures, there was also a positive correlation between the expected benefits of preparation for old age and an optimistic view of the future. However, the relationship differed regarding whether preparatory action served more to relieve one’s own burden and provide self-related benefits or whether one hoped that preparatory action would relieve the burden on one’s own relatives. Whereas in Hong Kong participants who were more optimistic were the ones who hoped that their own preparatory action would also relieve the burden on themselves and benefit others, there were no such correlations in Germany and the USA. There, the more optimistic the respondents were, the more they expected benefits for themselves (Kim-Knauss et al., 2020).
4.3.5 Subjective Norms of Responsibility for Ageing Preparation
Another question of the project Ageing as Future deals with the subjective perceptions of individual and societal responsibility for preparation for old age. Do people believe that they are responsible for their own preparation and that they can influence it? To what extent do people believe that the society is responsible for ageing preparation? For example, one may expect that in Germany, responsibility for financial ageing preparation is largely attributed to the governmental social security and pension systems. Furthermore, in other domains such as end-of-life preparation, people may place strong value on self-determination and accordingly see the responsibility as primarily their own.
Possible age differences in the attribution of responsibility for ageing preparation may also be a result of societal changes. It can be expected that especially seeing oneself as responsible for ageing preparation is somewhat more pronounced in Western countries, such as the USA, Germany, or the Czech Republic. In Eastern cultures such as in Hong Kong or Taiwan, in comparison, responsibilities were expected to be more strongly attributed to the family. The subjective attribution of responsibility for ageing preparation was again measured with a graphical assessment scale using slides to indicate how one allocates responsibility for ageing preparation in various domains (cf. Fig. 4.7). In relation to each of the five considered preparation domains, financial preparation, preparation for housing, preparation for need of care, preparation against loneliness, and preparation for dying and death, respondents indicated how they assigned responsibility between themselves, the society, and the family. For example, if it was assumed that oneself, society, and family were equally responsible, the “slider” in could be placed in a middle position.
Capturing subjective responsibility for five domains of ageing preparation
Figure 4.8 summarizes the respective response patterns of the respondents in the five countries under consideration, broken down by age group in the respective preparation domain. For the purpose of better comparability of the responses shown, all scale values were standardized and transformed in such a way that the average values in each case lie in the middle of the scale and the individual values scatter in the same way. The dashed line shown in the figure indicates in each case in which value range approximately 68% of all respondents’ answers lay. Figure 4.8 illustrates that there are clear differences between the countries surveyed, but also between the considered preparation domains.
Subjective responsibilities of society, family, and self by preparation domain, country, and age group
Note: 2018 survey; shown in T values with 95% confidence intervals around the mean (solid line). The dashed lines indicate the range of values of half a standard deviation (±5). Young 18–44 years, middle-aged 45–64 years, older >65 years
In Germany, responsibility for almost all preparation domains was more often attributed to society (in relation to the self and the family) than in all other countries. Only in the preparation domains of dying and death and social participation in old age did many German respondents see responsibility as lying with themselves or, in a balanced way, also with the family. In contrast, respondents in the USA saw responsibility for preparation for old age in all domains mostly with themselves. In the two Chinese countries Hong Kong and Taiwan, the response patterns are similar and show a clear differentiation depending on the considered preparation domain. In Hong Kong, responsibility for the financial situation and for housing tends to be attributed to the family, while responsibility for social participation and for dying and death tends to be attributed to society. However, there were also some domain-specific differences between the countries. For example, Germany and the Czech Republic saw greater social responsibility in financial preparation for old age than the USA and China. Regarding the age groups considered, there were only relatively small and inconsistent age differences in all the examined countries.
It is apparent that older participants generally tended to lean toward the middle in their answers and were in favor of a balanced responsibility between society, family, and self. The findings of the online study show that the examined countries differ significantly in terms of the responsibility of society, the family, and the individuals themselves for preparation for old age depending on the different domains. Future evaluations of our project will also allow us to clarify the extent to which the differences between the countries also have a concrete impact on preparation for old age and preparatory behavior.
4.3.6 Desire for Longevity as a Motive for Ageing Preparation
Future and preparatory action relates to a late phase of life that not all people reach and which, moreover, appears to many people to be less desirable. Accordingly, the question of the desired duration of one’s own life could represent an important drive in preparing for a long life. Especially concerning how long one would like to live, attitudes and expectations differ quite significantly between people, also depending on the respective living conditions and life domains (Lang et al., 2007; Lang & Rupprecht, 2020).
Thus, many people regard the length of their own lives as mainly dependent on biomedical advances, due to which possible diseases can be increasingly better combated, delayed, or even prevented altogether. A view frequently associated with this is that a prolonged long life seems desirable only as long as it remains free of chronic and serious illnesses. Living longer if this is accompanied by dependence on medical care, nursing care, and care by others appears, by implication, as a daunting scenario to be avoided. One possible consequence is that preparatory action is primarily devoted to maintaining one’s own health, functional capacity, and self-determination.
To some people, it seems desirable to live a long or even prolonged life even if this should be accompanied by functional limitations, with losses and care needs (Cicirelli, 2011). In our project, we assessed the desired and expected duration of one’s own life with the help of two questions. First, we asked, “How old would you like to be?” and, subsequently, “How old do you expect to be?” The resulting difference between the desired minus the expected lifespan thereby denotes the subjective life expectancy discrepancy (Rupprecht & Lang, 2020). This now provides information on the extent to which one’s own presumed life expectancy appears in principle to be rather too short or too long (Table 4.2). This also has various implications for how a long or extended life is assessed and how people prepare for old age (Lang & Rupprecht, 2019a).
In all countries, younger adults were more likely than older adults to report wanting to live somewhat longer than they expected. This subjective life expectancy discrepancy was particularly pronounced in Germany and the Czech Republic and significantly greater among young adults in the USA than in Hong Kong and Taiwan. In Chinese countries, for the clear majority of respondents (i.e., more than 50%), the ideal life span exactly matched the subjective expected life span. In Western countries such as the USA, the Czech Republic, and Germany, a clear majority of respondents wished to live longer than they subjectively expected to live. In all countries, there was a small proportion of people between 5% and 20% who even wished to live less long than they expected.
When people are asked how long they would like to live, a common and frequent response was to express reservations and uncertainty about how to answer to this question. Such uncertainty in one’s response to a possible desired longevity was shown to also entail information about preferences, mindsets, and attitudes that people have toward living long and extended lives (Ekerdt et al., 2017; Lang, 2023; Lang & Rupprecht, 2019b). In order to capture these reservations about their own desired lifespan, respondents were asked whether they would also want to live as long as they would like if they were seriously ill or in need of care. Only 12% answered this question in the affirmative. Around half (52%) of all participants said their answer was uncertain, as they were not sure what they wanted in this regard. Expressed uncertainty was strongest in Eastern cultures as compared to Western cultures (see far-most right column of Table 4.2). While the majority of respondents in the USA, Taiwan, and Hong Kong did not answer the question with certainty, a majority of German and Czech respondents were quite sure of their own lifespan wishes. In all countries, only a small proportion of respondents (7–23% depending on age) were convinced that they would want to live as long as they did, even if this meant being seriously ill and in need of care.
In sum, it can be seen that in all cultures, a rather cautious, reserved idea of what it means to live a long life prevails among most people, and a majority of people in the Western countries wish to live a few years longer than they expect for themselves, subject to health reservations, while in the Eastern countries, such wishes were expressed much less frequently.
4.4 Conclusion and Outlook: The Flexibility of Ageing
The findings on ageing preparation of the project Ageing as Future show that there is a high willingness among adults of different ages to deal with the subjectively expected topics and challenges of ageing and to take action to prepare for the last phase of life in an anticipatory and preventive way. All in all, this shows that the various domains of preparation for old age gain urgency and importance in the course of adulthood, especially for many older people. However, with regard to the findings of the online studies, the question arises to what extent the findings can be generalized. At the beginning of the project, for example, the participants in the online study were often female and more educated than in the questionnaire study. However, these differences increasingly evened out in the course of the project. Nevertheless, it remains to be clarified to what extent differences in education and income have an impact on preparatory and future action.
Most people adapt their preparatory behaviors flexibly to the requirements of the respective cultural conditions and, depending on culture and context, differentiate between the various domains of preparation, for example, between financial preparation, preparation for the need for long-term care, and preparation for dying and death. This differentiation of life domains is also evident regarding views of the future and with regard to specific benefit and cost expectations in one’s own preparation for old age.
Overall, the findings suggest that younger adults are less likely than older people to engage in ageing preparation in all domains. Younger people generally see fewer benefits and also fewer risks in preparing for old age, and they usually believe that they have more time in their lives to prepare for most domains than older people do. However, there are also domains, such as finances or care, where many younger adults see a need to start preparing for old age early in life early in life. The findings indicate that most people specifically adjust their ageing preparation to the concretely anticipated requirements of various life contexts and situations in their own future.
Ageing preparation affects all areas of life in old age in a differentiated way. Thus, adults distinguish clearly between the necessities and challenges associated with the phase of life immediately after the end of working life and those that at a very late phase of life, when the particular vulnerability of old age is at stake. For example, the substantial age- and culture-related differences in personal timing for ageing preparation indicate, for example, that preparation for old age is fitted quite flexibly into one’s life course, depending on the respective social and cultural conditions.
The overall picture shows that individual ageing preparation action are flexibly adapted to one’s own respective life circumstances and the respective welfare state conditions and thereby also reflect these. This is also partly reflected in the normative deadlines that people perceive for their preparatory actions, which vary according to life situation and cultural context. In all the considered domains of preparation for old age, differentiations are apparent not only according to age and culture, but also according to individual differences. Particularly in the personal handling of one’s own finitude and limited lifetime, strong individual differences become apparent, which are ultimately also reflected in domain-specific preparations for the end of life.
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Lang, F.R. (2024). Future Action and Ageing Preparation. In: Ageing as Future. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-57507-5_4
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