Here is the full transcript of Nancy Pachana’s talk titled “Ageism: The Longevity Thief” at TEDxUQ conference.
Nancy Pachana’s talk, “Ageism: The Longevity Thief,” addresses the pervasive issue of ageism, highlighting its detrimental effects on individuals and society. She emphasizes that ageism, defined as prejudice and discrimination based on age, robs individuals of opportunities and can shorten life expectancy by up to 7.5 years.
Pachana discusses the importance of combating ageism to improve quality of life across the lifespan, particularly in the context of increasing global longevity. She proudly mentions her affiliation with the University of Queensland, noting its status as the first age-friendly university in the southern hemisphere. Through her engaging talk, Pachana calls for a societal shift in perception towards aging, urging actions to dismantle ageist stereotypes and barriers.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
I have lived for 58 years, and what do you know about me? Do you know anything about my capabilities? Anything about my health status? Even what you can see, the gray streaks in my hair. This is actually a deliberate, and I would say, an artful collaboration with my fabulous hairdresser. But did you make a different assumption? These sorts of assumptions based on age, gender, country of origin, sexual orientation form a group of “isms” that are both dangerous and damaging.
I’m a psychologist, and I study aging. I’m going to talk to you today about the ism that I know best: ageism. Ageism is defined as assumptions, judgments, stereotypes, prejudice, discrimination based solely on chronological age. I’m very sorry to say that ageism is rife in the world.
The Prevalence of Ageism
Ageism is in the workplace, it’s at home, it’s in schools. In fact, the World Health Organization has shown that one in two people globally hold moderately to severely ageist attitudes. These attitudes rob people of opportunity. “You’re too young for this job; you’re too old for this job; you’re too young to do this activity; you’re too old to do this activity.” So, for people across the lifespan, they’re not able to participate fully in life.
And although I said that ageism affects people across the lifespan, it affects our most stark for people in the second half of life. And why is this? Well, in the first half of life, ageist attitudes are all around us, you know, the media, people around us, and we think, “This doesn’t really apply to me; I don’t have to be worried about this.” But then, at some point, someone does apply those stereotypes to you.
The Impact of Internalized Ageism
And you think, “Wait a minute, that’s not who I am, that’s not me.” But the stereotypes keep being applied. The lost opportunities pile up. And at some stage, you might say, “Maybe these do apply to me. Maybe this is who I am.” Becca Levy at Yale University has shown that these sorts of internalized ageist attitudes rob us of seven and a half years of life. That’s right, seven and a half years of life.
If I had a pill that would give you seven and a half years of life, if I could show you something in the environment that you could avoid, that you could gain those years, I would be very popular. People would want to know about it. But when I tell you instead that it’s how we are with each other, what we say and do to each other and to ourselves, this is vexing. It’s much easier to take a pill than it is to change behavior.
Living Longer and Healthier
But we do have to change these behaviors because as everyone knows, people all over are living longer. But that’s also an incorrect assumption. There are groups in the world, for example, indigenous people who are not sharing the dividends of a long life to the same extent as non-indigenous people. So, we must take account of that.
But in taking account of that, you still might say, “Well, we’re adding all these years of life. It’s still all added at the end where there’s disease and disability. Why would I be interested in that?” But that’s also an incorrect assumption because public health messages, medical advances have kept the proportion of life that is mainly in disability relatively constant.
The Decade of Healthy Aging
And so then the added years of longevity are in the middle of life, in the heart of life. So, that then if you rob yourself of seven and a half years of life, that also comes from the heart of life. Ageism is a major concern. The United Nations has named this decade that we’re in the Decade of Healthy Aging.
And a major goal of this decade is combating ageism. The World Health Organization, in support of this, has come up with a framework of major sectors of society that can work together to formulate policies and practices that frame the longevity dividend as just that, a dividend. Positive outcomes for the individual and society, not simply framed as cost and burden.
Age-Friendly Higher Education
I’m going to tell you about the sector in this framework that I know best, the higher education sector. I’m so proud to be able to tell you that my university, the University of Queensland, was the first age-friendly university in the southern hemisphere. It joined a worldwide group of over 85 universities that are united in aspiring to ten principles to make their universities more accessible.
These ten principles can be summed up in the very first principle: “All people, older people included, should have access to all of the activities of the university.” And so you could say, across the lifespan, everyone should be included in all aspects of the life of the university. But this has required some rethinking, because the activities of life traditionally have been very tied to chronological age.
Rethinking Life’s Activities
When you’re young, you go to school. When you’re aged in the middle of life, you work.