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Turkish University Students’ Self-Perceptions of Aging: An Analysis Over Socio-Economic Dimensions
Abstract
University students represent nearly more than half of the youth population (age group of 15-24) in Turkey. Meanwhile, the latest demographic data shows that they will constitute a majority of the elder generation in the context of the recent rapid aging trend in the near future. That said, and although the number of studies related to the students’ perceptions of old ages are increasing in recent years, there is still room to extend our understanding of the influence of demographics, social and economic patterns on students’ self-perceptions of old age. To investigate the Turkish students’ views towards their own 65+ ages, a questionary is applied to 450 students from two different universities located in different regions in Turkey. Survey analysis shows that, almost 85 percent of “engineering” and “economics and administrative science” faculty students describe health and elderly care as the two major concerns in their old ages. On the contrary, answers of the two faculties differentiated clearly in terms of happiness, ability to save more and living with someone else in their old ages. Also, students accept retirement period as a reflection of aging and most of the students claim they had never thought about the aging process before. Yet, female and male students describe the meaning of retirement as the most comfortable period and a period that makes no sense, respectively.
... Males feel the burden much more. This is indeed in line with the perceptions and feeling regarding the old ages as well as national investment and saving decisions, underlined in earlier surveys including Yumurtaci and Bagis (2019). ...
... For instance, even in the UK, a 2019 survey by the London Institute of Banking & Finance, over 2000 Britons between ages of 15 and 18 shows that 69% percent of the youth is concerned about their financial future, while 82% percent of these students expressed robust desire to get more financial education in school 13 . Meanwhile, Yumurtaci and Bagis (2019) also show that university students in Turkey also tend to have bigger concerns regarding their own old ages. ...
Despite little to no academic attention, widespread perception of the welfare state policies is a critical aspect of its evaluation, existence and the validity processes; especially that amongst youth and the new generations. This paper discusses welfare or the quality of life perceptions in Turkey and in particular the university students' economic and social welfare concerns. The paper is based upon survey outcomes from two different cities' university students, across Turkey; and analyzes the Turkish university students' current welfare, happiness, contentment with life and the future financial wellness perceptions. We employ the standard chi-square test of independence to test our hypotheses. The research aims to contribute to the efforts towards a roadmap regarding the socioeconomic policies to be implemented for the future of Turkey. The paper finds growing financial concerns among university students in terms of social and economic welfare. This is despite the recent economic, social and cultural transformation in modern Turkey. Meanwhile, the latest pandemic is likely to have deteriorated these perceptions. This research, meanwhile, is a worthy analysis to understand contentment regarding the current economic outlook, as well as the concerns and confidence in terms of financial future and wellness. Understanding these perceptions may potentially help in carving the middle and long-term national social and economic policies.
Türkiye’nin neredeyse bir asırlık kalkınma ve modernleşme serüveninde yeni bir dönüm noktasındayız. Global güç dengeleri bugün batıdan, doğuya doğru kaymaktadır. Çin, Rusya ve hatta Hindistan gibi Doğu ülkeleri yeni dönemin küresel güç dengelerinin önemli oyuncuları konumundadır. Yeniden Asya girişimi gibi yeni projeler, Türkiye’nin de bu gerçeğin farkında olması gerektiğini ve bu doğrultuda da küresel ticari, iktisadi ve politik ilişkilerinde yeniden ayarlamalar yapması gerektiğini göstermektedir. Ancak, burada dikkat edilecek en önemli unsur: 21. yy’ın çok büyük ihtimalle bir Asya yüzyılı olacağı gerçeğidir. Bu anlamda da Avrasya’nın yükselişi ve yeni dünya düzeninin oluşum süreci, yeni dönemin temel odağı olacağa benzemektedir. Türkiye, bu yeni fırsatı kaçırmamalıdır.
Türkiye, özellikle de son 20 yılda, ulaştırma ve lojistikte, ciddi bir altyapı oluşturdu. Siyasi istikrar, makro-finansal istikrar ile birlikte ikili ekonomik ilişkilerin geliştirilmesi, bu çalışmada da altı çizilen noktalarda atılacak adımlarla Asya ile ticari ve daha genel anlamda ekonomik ilişkilerin geliştirilmesi noktasında kısa sürede hızlı ve etkin yol alınmasını kolaylaştıracaktır. Türkiye’nin Asya ülkeleri ile enerji, ticaret, yatırım, turizm, savunma, mühendislik, teknoloji, ulaştırma, iletişim teknolojileri ve lojistik sektörlerinde önemli bir iş-birliği potansiyeli bulunmaktadır. Tüm bu firsatların da Avrasyacılık değil, Asya’daki fırsatların da değerlendirilmesi çerçevesinde ele alınmasında ciddi faydalar görülmektedir.
Bu kitap da Türkiye’nin yakın hinterlandındaki önemli alternatif bir iktisadi çıkış yolu sunan yükselen Asya’daki fırsatlara odaklanmaktadır. Çalışma, başta Çin gibi küresel büyük oyuncular olmak üzere, bölgesel Asya ekonomilerinin Türkiye gibi potansiyel yeni büyük bir küresel oyuncu için barındırdığı önemli fırsatları incelemektedir. Asya ülkeleri, özellikle de Asya’daki BRICS ülkeleri ve ASEAN gibi alternatifler, Uzak Ülkeler Stratejisi belgesindeki ülkeler ile geliştirilecek ekonomik ilişkiler, dış ticaret dengesini sağlama ve cari açığın düşürülmesi noktasında önemli avantajlar sağlayacaktır. Bu çalışma, Rusya ve Kafkasya, Ortadoğu ve Güney Asya gibi daha derin analizler gerektiren bölgeleri kısaca özetleyerek; Türkiye’nin Orta Koridor, Yeniden Asya Girişimi ve Uzak Ülkeler Stratejisi girişimleri kapsamındaki EİT, Çin, ASEAN, TDT ve bir nebze de Asya kaplanları ülkelerine odaklanmaktadır.
Nitekim bölgesel nüfuz arayışı noktasında proaktif hareket etme gereği bugün hiç olmadığı kadar açıktır. Türkiye’nin Asya’da yükselecek gücü ve ekonomik etkinliği, Çin ve Rusya gibi, hatta Kuzey Kore gibi bölgesel güçlerin etkilerini sınırlama noktasında da önemli katkılar sunabilir. Tıpkı Çin’i Hint-Pasifik’te dengelemeyi amaçlayan dörtlü ittifak “Quad” ve FOIP (Serbest ve Açık Hint-Pasifik) vizyonu gibi, Orta-Koridor üzerinde de Çin gibi bölgesel ve küresel oyuncuların ekonomik etkilerinin dengelenmesi önem arz-eder.
The Turkish social insurance system has been feverishly debated for years, particularly through its burden on the economy. The most recent reform is an attempt to neutralize the deterioration within the social security system and its effects on the economy. After the recent reform, ‘the way that retirement benefits are calculated’ is changed unfavorably for workers and the minimum age for retirement is increased. In particular, for an agent with 25 years of social security tax payments, the replacement rate is down from 65 percent to 50 percent. On the other hand, retirement age is up from 60 to 65. The aim of this paper is to investigate the macroeconomic effects of these changes using an OLG model. The author’s findings indicate that labor supply, output and capital stock increase when changes above are applied to the benchmark economy calibrated to the Turkish economy data in 2005. A critical change with the current reform is that the marginal benefit of working has become uniform over ages. In a simulation exercise, the marginal retirement benefit in the benchmark economy is changed to be uniform over ages while keeping the size of social security system unchanged. As a result, the benefit of retiring at a later period increases. However, uniform distribution of the marginal benefits itself decreases both the capital stock and output of the economy. Increasing the retirement age, on the other hand, has positive effects on the economy since agents obtain retirement benefits for fewer years and at an older age. Age increase has substantial positive effects on the labor supply, the capital stock, and the output.
The 1990 World Values Survey demonstrated that industrialization promotes a shift from traditional to secular-rational values. Drawing data from a sample survey of 2,350 respondents in Shanghai, this study examines the impact of social change on people's values in China. Specifically, we are interested in (1) are there significant differences in values between different generations in China? (2) Do younger generations tend to have more modern values? (3) What are the main factors that affect the differences? The results show that the younger generations in China have already shifted from traditional values to modern values in a recent social transformation process. In addition, the younger generations tend to be more secular. They are more likely to regard self-development as the most important thing in life rather than making contributions to the country and society. Further, the younger generations are more individualistic than the old generations. They are more likely to live according to their own lifestyles regardless of what others think. Thus, they are less likely to follow the traditional collective ideology. Overall, the study shows significant generational gaps in value orientations in China.
The article focuses on several demographic and socio-economic idiosyncrasies in Central and Eastern Europe, which impact the process of population ageing and intergenerational relations. These include the adverse mortality trends and especially the excess male mortality in certain countries, which exacerbated sex differences in life expectancy beyond anything ever recorded in peace-time population history, the combination of natural population decrease and net emigration, the disordered cohort flows and the shorter generational length. The rapid demographic change in these countries coincided with political, eco-nomic and social transformations. The shock of the fall of communism affected differently younger people, who could relatively easily reorganize their life cycles so as to adapt to the changed circumstances, and older persons for whom such reorganization was more difficult, or even impossible. This created the possibility for the opening of an intergenerational rift, as older generations felt being the losers of the transition. The article explores the implica-tions of these idiosyncrasies and social context for living arrangements, kin networks, individual wellbeing and inter-generational relations, and identifies areas where particular challenges are likely to be faced when it comes to policies and programs aimed at older persons.
Although the aging process begins at birth, fears about late adulthood can foster anxiety in younger cohorts about this time of life. This study examines the relationship between non-elderly subjects' (n = 884, 18-55 years) knowledge of and anxieties regarding personal aging and their gender and race. We hypothesized that non-elderly women and persons of color, those who will experience multiple jeopardy in their own late life, would report greater anxiety about their own aging process than did men and majority group members. Women did report lower income and education levels, less knowledge of aging, greater anxiety related to their own aging process, and more time involved in caregiving activities. People of color also differed from Caucasians in certain dimensions of knowledge and anxiety. Implications from these results include the creation of public educational strategies and the organization of women and minorities to more actively address the development and shape of age-related policies.
This research found that older individuals with more positive self-perceptions of aging, measured up to 23 years earlier, lived 7.5 years longer than those with less positive self-perceptions of aging. This advantage remained after age, gender, socioeconomic status, loneliness, and functional health were included as covariates. It was also found that this effect is partially mediated by will to live. The sample consisted of 660 individuals aged 50 and older who participated in a community-based survey, the Ohio Longitudinal Study of Aging and Retirement (OLSAR). By matching the OLSAR to mortality data recently obtained from the National Death Index, the authors were able to conduct survival analyses. The findings suggest that the self-perceptions of stigmatized groups can influence longevity.
Economists have extensively analyzed the interactions between economic-demographic factors and saving. Fertility rates and the dependency ratio have received considerable attention, but the effect of life expectancy improvements have not been analyzed explicitly. This paper provides an added dimension to the existing literature by empirically examining the role of life expectancy as a determinant of saving. Recent data demonstrate that life expectancy is a statistically significant and quantitatively important factor affecting less developed countries' saving performance. One must consider human capital investments when assessing population growth's impact on saving. The analysis here is one offer that incorporate human capital in defining saving. The overall results are sensitive to level of development and regional diversity. Copyright 1994 by Oxford University Press.
Se emplea un amplio conjunto de datos que permite evaluar de diferentes formas la hipótesis de la felicidad, empleando cuatro enfoques metodológicos. Se constata que las personas de mayor edad en Uruguay tienen una tendencia a reconocerse felices cuando están casadas, cuando tienen un buen estado de salud y si tienen altos ingresos monetarios o estiman que su ingreso es conveniente para su nivel de vida. Contrariamente, señalan niveles más bajos de felicidad cuando viven solos o cuando su nutrición es insuficiente. Se evidencia que la educación no tiene un impacto claro sobre su percepción de felicidad. Este trabajo es una contribución al estudio de los factores que pueden explicar la felicidad entre las personas de la tercera edad en los países de América Latina. El trabajo futuro se concentrará sobre un análisis empírico mejorado y sobre la expansión del estudio a otros países.
Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate the attitude of dental students towards elderly patients. This approach might increase the responsiveness and need of the geriatric dental education within the undergraduate dental students curriculum, which is the persistent necessity for today communities. Methods & Materials: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 201 students who were randomly selected. The investigation was carried out in Qazvin University of Medical Sciences. The attitude of dental students towards elderly was measured with a self-administered questionnaire consisting of an Aging Semantic Differential scale (ASD), which was developed by Rozencranz and Mc Nevin. Results: According to the findings of this study, the students' attitude remained very positive towards the elderly patients as they showed a strong demand to work with elderly patients. This consisted of a 24 bipolar pair of adjectives that described the attributes of behavioral characteristics thought to be applicable to persons of all ages. Conclusion: According to our finding, the future geriatric dentistry is not towards a weak point in Iran as compared with the undesirable attitudes of dental students in the developed countries.
This study explored the attitudes of business, psychology, occupational therapy, and nursing majors toward elderly persons to determine whether differences in attitudes existed among individuals in the four majors. Attitudinal differences between traditionally aged (18 to 22 years) and nontraditionally aged (23 or more years) students also were compared. No significant differences were found for the effect of either major or age. The students' concern over aging and their perception of themselves at age 75 also were explored. Traditionally aged students were significantly more concerned about personal aging than were nontraditionally aged students, although both groups tended to perceive themselves as possessing many positive characteristics at age 75. Significant differences were found across major, but not across age, on the mean number of positive and negative characteristics the students attributed to themselves in later life.
Knowledge about aging and the attitudes toward older people were surveyed in undergraduate students (total number of subjects sampled is 1402) in four countries (Japan, China, Taiwan, and Vietnam) in eastern cultures and in two countries (United States and United Kingdom) in western cultures. All participants completed two questionnaires, FAQ1 (for knowledge) and ASD (for attitudes) in their own languages. It was found that within the undergraduate students sampled: (a) the level of knowledge about aging in the western countries is significantly higher than that in the eastern countries, and (b) attitudes toward aging are more positive in the western countries compared to the eastern countries. The data suggest that, within the limits of the sampling: (a) the tradition of respecting older adults in eastern cultures may have weakened gradually, and (b) the modernization theory that assumes industrialization devalues aging populations appears to be supported in eastern countries but not in western countries. An alternative non-linear theory is discussed for the relationship between modernization and the societal views on aging. Educational promotion of knowledge about aging is emphasized for the formation of positive attitudes toward older adults.
Aging education is relatively new to the university, and our understanding of the perspectives students bring to aging populations is correspondingly limited. This investigation surveys 546 students at a midsized, Midwestern university to explore students' views toward elders, toward serving elders, and toward the relevance of aging education for various other areas of study. Our results suggest generally favorable attitudes: older students and students with greater contact with aging populations were more positive than their counterparts; gender, GPA, and aging courses taken showed sporadic or no effects on various attitudes. These preliminary findings offer a baseline for future investigations. Our findings suggest that students who have more contact through friendship and volunteer experiences have more positive attitudes toward working with older adults. Additional research is needed to examine if type of gerontological instruction is associated with attitudes toward aging and aging education.
Using an updated version of the Aging Semantic Differential, 534 younger, middle age, and older participants from a college community rated female and male targets categorized as ages 21–34 and 75–85. Participants also provided views about their own aging. Repeated measures of analysis of variance examined attitudinal differences by age and gender of targets, and by participant age and gender. Female targets were viewed more positively than males by most rater groups. Older targets were viewed more positively by older participants than by other age groups. Older participants had more positive views about their own aging than did participants of younger or middle ages.
College students’ attitudes toward elderly persons were ascertained using a convenience sample of 420. Instrumentation consisted of a 20‐item semantic differential scale developed by Sanders, Montgomery, Pittman, and Balkwell (1984). Using the semantic differential format, the respondents evaluated elderly persons in three target age groups, separated by gender. The research questions in this study were as follows: (a) What are college students’ attitudes toward a target population of male and female elderly categorized as the young old (65‐74), the old old (75‐99), and centenarians (100+)? (b)Are there differences in attitudes based on gender, size of home community, or experience with older persons? Repeated measures analysis of variance were conducted to assess whether there were differences in attitudes toward the three age categories of elderly targets. Results indicated that significant gender differences existed. Male respondents viewed female elderly targets in all age groups significantly more negatively than did female respondents. They also viewed male targets in the 65‐74 age category more negatively than did female respondents. Implications for social work practice and future research are discussed.
There is a popular belief that attitudes toward older people are predominantly negative in Western cultures and positive in Eastern cultures. In the light of social and cultural changes in these cultures, it is timely to investigate whether this belief still holds true. The study also explores an often-ignored feature of cultural differences in these attitudes, namely, that attitudes toward older people are mixed phenomena in both cultures. The study uses a cross-group research design. Sixty-five undergraduates (31 Western and 35 Eastern) completed the Fraboni Scale of Ageism (FSA) administered on computers. It found that attitudes toward older people were generally positive in both cultures and did not support the first hypothesis that attitudes toward older people would be predominantly negative in Western cultures and positive in Eastern cultures. However, as predicted, attitudes toward older people were mixed in both cultures. This study highlights the similarity in attitudes toward older people across cultures and argues that future studies need to be encouraged to pay more attention to positive attitudes.
According to gerontological thought, an important part of senior citizens' disabilities are products of their social exclusion rather than factors associated with their physical or mental health. How these exclusions come about was the purpose of the research reported in this article. The study was conducted among 682 Chilean university students using a semantic differential test. A generalized negative image on old age was observed. The conclusion is that social images of old age affect the well-being of present and future senior citizens.
Knowledge, anxiety, and attitudes about the elderly were assessed in 113 university students using the Facts on Aging Quiz, the Anxiety about Aging Scale, and the Fraboni Scale on Ageism. No significant differences in knowledge or anxiety based on age or gender were found in the sample. Female participants in the sample were found to be significantly less ageist than males on average, and this difference was maintained controlling for the levels of the other variables. Previous studies have not consistently found a correlation between either knowledge or contact with the elderly and ageism. This study uses multiple regression and path analysis to investigate the relationship between knowledge, anxiety, ageism, and contact with the elderly. The study finds that knowledge and contact with the elderly do affect ageism, but indirectly, mediated through their effect on anxiety.
A Chinese translation of a standardized instrument was used to investigate the attitudes of 199 Mainland Chinese university students concerning the elderly. The findings revealed that students' attitudes were in the positive and neutral ranges and that elderly males were perceived more favorably than elderly females. The findings also revealed that the majority of students had considered working with the elderly. Those who reported to have been closer to an elderly person held more positive attitudes. The findings of this study are compared to similar studies done in other countries and discussed within the context of Chinese culture and society. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
It is important that medical students possess the correct attitude towards the elderly and not have an ageist attitude. This is because they will be caring for an increasing proportion of elderly patients. We thus sought to assess the attitudes of our medical students towards the elderly.
We conducted a cross-sectional study assessing the attitudes towards the elderly of 225 fi rst-year and 135 third-year students using a self-administered questionnaire that incorporated the Kogan's Attitudes Toward Old People Scale (KAOP). Elderly people were defined as those aged 65 years and above for this study.
The majority of fi rst- (98.2%) and third-year (99.2%) medical students had positive attitudes towards elderly people (KAOP score above 102). KAOP scores were not significantly different regardless of seniority (medical student year), gender, race, household income, or having a doctor-parent. Although the mean KAOP score of third-year students was higher than that of fi rst-year students, this was not significantly different (P = 0.062).
Medical students in Singapore have a positive attitude towards the elderly. It is important that their medical curriculum continues to have an increasing geriatric component in view of the increasing numbers of older persons that they will be caring for due to the ageing population.
Bachelor of Social Work and Master of Social Work students (N=183) responded to items investigating their beliefs about what they would be like when they were age 75. From 27 items a principle component analysis identified seven factor variables that investigated perceptions of health concerns, health-related vulnerability, importance of spiritual/religious belief, social worth, cognitive capacity, fitness, and being old. Respondents believed that at age 75 they would have many health concerns, would be fit, have social worth, and would be somewhat religious/spiritual. Although most did not believe they would be as capable at 75 as they are now, most respondents did not believe that at 75 they would be vulnerable (a victim of crime, lonely, live in a nursing home, need assistance with bathing or dressing, or have Alzheimer's disease). The factor variables were entered in a standard multiple regression analysis with Perceptions of Health-Related Vulnerability as the dependent variable. The final model accounted for 54.6% of the adjusted variance using five predictor variables: (a) Perceptions of Health Concerns, (b) Perceptions of the Importance of Spiritual/Religious Beliefs, (c) Perceptions of Social Worth, (d) Perceptions of Cognitive Capacity, and (e) Perceptions of Being Old. Implications for research, practice, and education are discussed.
Are young people's views on aging accurate?
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