RE: What age is old?

As we look forward to when our work will have matured we might want to focus on the really fast-
growing demographic (those over 80) because it is fairly clear that 70 is actually no longer "old"!

I recommend that at a minimum it should be 70+ because there is much movement towards that as a goal 
for "retirement" (rapidly becoming a quaint anachronism).

Perhaps the major effect underlying the notion of age as disability is the decrement of vision and 
the "knee" in that curve (acuity vs. age) appears above that.

Love.

------- Original Message -------
>From    : Andrew Arch[mailto:andrew@w3.org]
Sent    : 6/2/2008 12:47:21 PM
To      : public-wai-age@w3.org
Cc      : 
Subject : RE: What age is old?

 
Hello,

At the most recent WAI-AGE TF teleconf [1] it was suggested that the 
project should possibly have a definitive position of what age a person 
becomes an "older person". Section 2.1 of the Literature Review [2] 
discussed the issue of age and section 2.4 talks about the interaction 
of chronological age with Attitude and Aptitude. Other factors also come 
into play.

Should we take a position that an "older person" is 60 years (or 50 
years or 70 years or ???)? Is Bailey's classification [3]:
   older = 60-74 years
   old-old = 75+ years
a reasonable one to adopt?

Please share your thoughts on this topic on the mailing list.

Thanks, Andrew


[1]  http://www.w3.org/2008/05/27-waiage-minutes.html 
[2]  http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-wai-age-literature-20080514/ 
[3]  http://www.webusability.com/article_age_classifications_8_2002.htm 

-----------
Andrew Arch
Web Accessibility and Ageing Specialist
W3C/ERCIM, Sophia Antipolis, France
Ph +33 (0)4 92 38 79 46
www.w3.org/WAI/WAI-AGE/

Received on Monday, 2 June 2008 19:59:50 UTC