The Super Senior Citizen: Age of Identity

The concept of age identity denotes the inner understanding of an individual’s age and aging progression. Identity of aging is the outcome of the progressions through which one identifies with or distances oneself from different aspects of the aging process. In the year 2011, the Department of Finance, Government of India, categorized such a population as ‘Super Senior Citizen,’ who are Indian citizens belonging to the age of 80 years and above for income tax assessment (ENS Economic Bureau, The India Express, New Delhi, March 01, 2011). The oldest-old have the highest age prevalence of morbidity, disability, and institutionalization of any age group; the term does perhaps imply the progression of frailty associated with Neugarten’s (1974) conceptualization of the “young old” (60-70 years old) and “old-old” (70-80 years old). But, unlike Neugarten’s concept, which joined age, health, and social characteristics, the term oldest-old, in its basic usage, simply defined the chronological age group of those aged 80 and older, without implying that all, or most, of the oldest old were necessarily frail. The process of aging and the demographic characteristics of the oldest-old population may be related to age identity here as well. Moreover, the present study exposed that most of the Super Senior Citizen people realized that their age identity may vanish after some years because their quality of life is not well at this age of life.