BRITAIN. Age No Barrier For UK's Senior Generation

. LONDON, England / China Daily / November 8, 2005: In today's Britain, people are no longer growing old quietly. From a 79-year-old dancer to a 96-year-old model, "retirement" is a dirty word. The oldies are coming. By 2020, more than half of all British adults will be over 50. In fact, the over-50s own 80 per cent of the nation's wealth. They include students, newlyweds, parents of young children, chief executives, government ministers, marathon-runners, backpackers. If we define the old as they have been defined throughout history, as those aged between 50 and 100-plus, they cover two to three generations and include many of the most eminent, active and affluent people in the country. Even if we put the age limit higher, given levels of fitness, the same is still true. In the 20th century, notes Pat Thane, professor of contemporary history at London University: "For most people, death was not preceded by a long period of serious dependency." "Fifty is the new 30," claims Andrew Goodsell, chief executive of Saga, even more bullishly. Saga has built up a turnover of 530 million pound (US$922) business from specializing in services (travel, insurance, publishing) for the over-50s. It has done so by neatly finessing the paradox of being an age-related enterprise whose premise is that people don't want to be defined by age. "We don't like generalized tags," Goodsell explains. "We don't think it's appropriate to categorize people." Despite the ironies of the sell, he is right. A thriving third age, as the French usefully think of it, is not primarily dependent on the number of birthdays passed. People can become decrepit fourth-agers in their sixties, or they can be like Jenny Wood-Allen of Dundee who, in 2002, at the age of 90, became the oldest woman to complete a marathon. This makes George Bush Snr's decision to celebrate his 80th birthday by making a parachute jump look almost half-hearted. The multitude of third-agers may be new, but, as Pat Thane points out in a new book, The Long History of Old Age, longevity itself is not. Before the 20th century, life expectancy was only 40-45, but the figures were skewed by high rates of infant and maternal mortality. In the 18th century, at least 10 per cent of the European population was over 60. A good proportion of these older people have always refused to settle down in front of the historical equivalent of Countdown. Doge Enrico -Dandolo led the citizens of Venice on the fourth Crusade in 1204 at the age of 97. John Wesley eventually admitted to starting to feel old in 1789 at 86. Victor Hugo became a senator in 1876 aged 74. Older workers are commonly thought to be less adaptable. Yet whenever these assumptions have been tested, they have been found to be wrong. Source: China Daily