Abstract
Longevity is an aspiration at the population level, a goal of public health policy and research. In the later decades of life, longevity goals also deserve scrutiny at the personal level to understand whether people welcome longer lives. Contradictory preferences could be expected, both the embrace of longevity and hesitation. The desire for extended life was examined using qualitative interviews in parallel designs among 90 persons aged 62 and older at sites in Germany, China, and the United States. Just over one third of the participants declined to express aspirations for longer life, some because they felt that their lives had reached a stage of completion and some as a form of fate acceptance. A larger number did indeed want extended lives but less than half estimated an amount of time that they desired. Moreover, there was strong opinion that longer lives were desirable only if current or acceptable levels of health were maintained. These replies indicate that future time is welcome so long as it occurs in the “third age” of independent living and not in the “fourth age” of vulnerability and decline. Replies also reveal that many older adults in these three cultures conceptually map the future not as a smooth continuum of time but rather as segmented into states, one kind of which is wanted and one which is not.
•Ninety elders in China, Germany, and the U.S. were asked their ideal length of life.•A minority parried our questions, declining to express aspirations for a longer life.•Of those who valued longer lives for themselves, many had a certain stipulation.•Desires for extra years were conditional on remaining in reasonably good health.•Our participants seemed to segment future time into wanted and unwanted parts.