[Being old is occurring later. Age-related norms and self-concepts in the second half of life]

Our contribution focuses on the question of how aging subjects experience and interpret biographic transitions into old age - specifically against the background of the current sociodiscursive revaluation of the so-called young old. The results of our qualitative interviews with elderly men and women in Germany indicate that the self-description "young elderly" does not play a role in identity-building in higher age, although norms of "active" or "productive aging" are widely accepted by the elderly. On the other hand, notions of "very old age" in need of care appear as something that can barely be integrated into the self-concepts and life plans of the interviewees. The transition from adulthood into the "third" (i.e., old age) stage is, thus, subjectively being postponed by elderly people into the (imagined) very last stage of their lives.