Stephen King wrote in The Shawshank Redemption, “Get busy living, or get busy dying.” And according to a study just released, most Americans don’t balk at either.
While only 38% of Americans would themselves want medical treatments that slow the aging process and allow them to live decades longer to at least 120 years, roughly two-thirds (68%) think that most other people would want to do so.
This was one of many findings presented in a comprehensive public opinion study published Tuesday by the Pew Research Center, which examined Americans’ attitudes about aging, health care, life satisfaction, and other bioethical issues.
According to this study, Americans are generally optimistic regarding their own old age, with 81% satisfied with the way things are going in their lives. About 56% feel that 10 years from now their lives will be even better, and 28% assume that things will continue just about the same. While younger adults are more optimistic, about one-quarter of respondents over the age of 65 say they expect their lives to be better in a decade and 43% assume things will be about the same.
While about half of respondents said that radical life extension methods would be “bad for society” (51%) , most are not particularly worried about the gradual rise in the number of older Americans.
About 90% said that “having more elderly people in the population” is either good for society or does not make much of a difference, with just 10% seeing this trend as negative. Further, 63% see life-prolonging medical advances as generally good, and 54% see these advances as worth the costs.
It does appear that as people age, they think that life should last longer: While 19% of respondents ages 18-29 would be happiest living to age 78 or under, this ratio drops dramatically as age brackets rise. Among adults 65 and older just 6% would be prefer to die by 78.
Karen Cyphers, PhD, is a public policy consultant, researcher, and mother to three daughters. She can be reached at [email protected].
