We urgently need to change the way we think and act about an issue that affects all of us and is advancing at an impressive speed, visibly changing the landscape of Brazil. Am I talking about climate change? No. Although I could be, the subject of this column is something else.
The speed of the aging population in Brazil has surprised even the researchers at IBGE involved in the last Census. Although the proportion of people over 65 is growing rapidly, demanding many adjustments both in the private sector and in public policies, the big news that isn't being reported enough is that in a few years, Brazil will be predominantly a middle-aged country.
By 2040, 60% of the country's workforce will be 45 years or older.
Women over 40 are the only age group where the number of children is increasing. These are two signs indicating the urgency of changing how we view this stage of life.
Despite this reality approaching inevitably and rapidly, the job market is not responding. Reaching 40, or even less in some sectors, sets off the alarm about the risk of replacement and much greater difficulties in re-entering the workforce, sometimes due to pure prejudice, other times due to companies' unwillingness to pay for more experienced professionals.
The economic impact of this is already severe today - Brazilians aged 41 to 60 are the largest group when it comes to credit restrictions due to debt. They are also often financially responsible for both their children, who are also in a tough situation (as one-fifth of young Brazilians are "neither studying nor working"), and increasingly for their older parents. And when this group becomes the majority, what then?
Perhaps this age-based exclusion would make some sense if we were talking about jobs requiring significant physical exertion or some Olympic sports. But in intellectual or creative work, where many reach their peak later in life?
Advertising, with rare exceptions, is a hostile place for middle-aged individuals, under the guise of being "in tune with the culture," based on the absurd premise that older adults are not part of the culture, do not have or participate in their own culture, or necessarily want to participate in the culture as younger people do, or consider what younger people consume to be aspirational in some way, or that culture and trending topics are the same thing, none of which is supported by any evidence. PowerPoint slides really accept anything.
An idea of a midlife crisis imported from the developed world, particularly from the U.S., still serves as the backdrop for understanding this stage of life, with little or no connection to the financial possibilities and what is actually happening in people's lives here, exacerbating this detachment from reality.
The clichés in portraying middle-aged adults, when it happens, are very common: out-of-touch, dated, falling behind in technology, ridiculous, uninteresting, limited to parental roles, rarely protagonists, and often asexual. Normal and biological things like baldness and perimenopause are frequently ridiculed or stigmatized, rather than embraced.
Wouldn't a more honest and truthful representation of these individuals show them as more concerned with family and professional responsibilities than with the insecurities of youth, more pragmatic in their relationships with new trends, more self-assured in their style and way of presenting themselves to the world, and therefore less interested in fleeting fads? How did we get here?
In a country that has been predominantly young for much of its recent history, the dominant narrative about middle age is marked by a perspective coming from the worst of the stereotypical teenager or young person: arrogant, condescending, and full of judgments - almost everything associated with youth and almost nothing associated with maturity is good.
Perhaps that's why we've accepted crude ideas like "we all want to be young" as if they were brilliant insights. In reality, what we want is not to be social outcasts and stigmatized after a certain age, to not have our behaviors judged and constrained by arbitrary and stifling tacit rules about what is acceptable at a certain age, and also to maintain our vitality and health for as long as possible. Facing numerous professional, personal, and financial challenges, already dealing with some of life's imposed frustrations (unlike the young who inhabit a world of infinite potential), having to deal with others' condescending attitudes is too much to ask.
The curious thing is that the semantic associations with maturity are so negative that even younger people are affected - evidenced by the increasingly early start of "rejuvenating" and preventive surgeries and treatments.
To make matters worse, part of the contemporary discourse vilifies older adults as bearers of power and makers of the really important decisions, and although this is somewhat true (yes, a large number of political and business leaders are middle-aged) - most people in this stage of life in Brazil do not hold this kind of power and are merely juggling many responsibilities and trying to do their best for their families, in all their various definitions and arrangements.
But there are other possible paths. The contrast with other cultures with larger older populations, such as in Asia and parts of Italy, is striking - the experience and social role of older adults are reasons for reverence, not ridicule, and this different perspective positively impacts the quality of life for everyone.
From a certain angle, being middle-aged is more "revolutionary" or countercultural than youth itself, with so many codes of belonging and so much insecurity about one's place in the world. Caring less about others' opinions as a sign of maturity is a common theme among older adults, and few things can be more authentic and genuinely rebellious than that.
It's time to reflect more on the tired jokes and clichés we ourselves replicate. It's time to stop trying to explain the complexity and richness of the human experience through reductionist ideas that lump billions of individuals together. It's time to abandon the view of mature life from the narcissistic and self-referential perspective of the stereotypical young person. It's time to question the unproven idea of the aspirationality of youth consumption. It's time to understand, with data and research and not with clichés and unfounded theories, the pains and pleasures of a stage of life that we will all go through, in unique circumstances due to all the major transformations we are experiencing.
