英調查：人在58歲時步入老年

According to a study, the average Briton believes that youth ends at 35 and old age begins at 58. In between - all 23 years - is your middle age.

The news that 58 is "over the hill" may come as a surprise to anyone who has passed the milestone and feels they are not yet in the twilight of their lives.

They include Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the glamorous actress Jane Seymour, who are both full of energy at 59. Kathryn Bigelow, 58, has just won an Oscar for directing the action-packed movie The Hurt Locker.

The finding that we regard people in their fifties as getting doddery, despite the evidence that older people are living more active lives than ever, was revealed by academics from the University of Kent to a meeting of the Economic and Social Research Council, in London.

Professor Dominic Abrams, who studied data from 40,000 people across Europe, said: "The survey showed that age prejudice – being treated as "too young" or "too old" – is perceived to be a serious or very serious issue by 63 per cent of respondents, so it is obviously important to know what these age labels mean to people."

A survey asked: when does youth end and old age begin? For the UK, the average response was that you stop being young at 35, and start being old at 58.

But the figures also showed that opinions differed among the age groups. Younger people, those aged 15 to 24, thought youth ended at just 28 and old age began at 54.

Not surprisingly, people in their eighties were more generous. They regarded the final year of youth as 42, and the onset of old age as 67.

Professor Abrams, a psychologist, added: "This evidence shows that what counts as young and old is very largely down to the age of the beholder."

Men regarded the end of youth and start of old age to begin two years earlier than women did, according to results from the European Social Survey.

There were also large differences among European countries. Youth was perceived to end earliest among the Portuguese; they said it was at 29, while in Cyprus it was 45. The Portuguese also thought old age began at 51 – whereas Belgians believed it took at lot longer, at 64.

一項研究表明，英國人普遍認爲青年時期在35歲結束，老年時期從58歲開始。而這之間的23年則是人的中年時期。

這一結果可能會讓那些已過58歲但卻尚未感到人生遲暮的人感到吃驚。

這其中包括59歲的英國首相戈登•布朗和魅力女星簡•西摩爾，現在的他們依然精力充沛；以及58歲的女導演凱瑟琳•畢格羅，她剛憑藉執導動作片《拆彈部隊》獲得奧斯卡獎。

雖然在英國人看來，五十多歲的人正走向人生暮年，但有證據顯示年齡較大的人的生活狀態比以往更加積極。這一研究結果由肯特大學研究人員在倫敦召開的經濟和社會科學研究委員會會議上公佈。

多米尼克•艾布拉姆斯教授在對從歐洲收集的4萬人的數據進行了研究。他說：“調查顯示，63%的受訪者認爲年齡偏見（被視爲‘太年輕’或‘太老’）是一個嚴重或十分嚴重的問題，因此瞭解人們對這些年齡界限的看法顯然十分重要。”

一項調查問到：青年時期何時結束，老年時期何時開始？英國人的普遍回答是前者在35歲時結束，後者從58歲開始。

數據還顯示，不同年齡段的人對這一問題的看法也不相同。年齡在15歲到24歲之間的年輕人認爲青年時期在28歲時結束，老年時期從54歲開始。

不出意料的是，八十多歲的人對兩個界限的理解更爲寬鬆。他們認爲青年時期結束於42歲，老年時期開始於67歲。

心理學家艾布拉姆斯教授說：“這表明，對青年和老年起止年齡問題的看法在很大程度上取決於不同人羣的年齡。”

根據這一歐洲社會調查的結果，男性所認爲的青年和老年的起止年齡比女性早兩年。

這一結果在歐洲不同的國家間還存在較大差異。葡萄牙人所認爲的青年時期結束得最早，爲29歲，而在塞浦路斯人認爲青年時期終止於45歲。葡萄牙人還認爲老年時期從51歲開始，而比利時人所認爲的老年則要晚得多，爲64歲。

Vocabulary:

over the hill: 在走下坡路，在衰退中

doddery: 衰弱的，遲鈍的，步履蹣跚的