Evaluation of age-related labels by senior citizens

Abstract

The age-related labels ‘50+,' ‘senior'and ‘retired' are evaluated by a 45+ sample. Results show the appreciation of the terms increases upon entering the 50+ / senior / retirement group and keeps on increasing with age once the treshold age is crossed. The findings that label evaluations are generally positive and that 65 years is the mode of indicated treshold age for senior citizenship lead to an alternative interpretation of previous research (Tepper, 1994): people under 65 might consider being labeled ‘senior' undesirable because it is deviant from normality rather than because of the negativity of the label as such. Keywords: senior, 50+, age labels, marketing communications