Social Roles, Subjective Age, and Gender: Exploring the Links in Later Life

Subjective age (SA) is strongly linked to positive developmental outcomes and successful aging. The social roles people assume are supposed to impact SA, since they incorporate age-graded social experiences and age-stereotypic role expectations. Social roles are also strongly gendered, providing the opportunity to understand gender-specific processes of SA. This study investigates a broad range of social roles and their relation to older men and women’s SA in later life. N = 285 participants aged 50 to 86 years (Mage = 65.04, SD = 8.88) reported on 19 social roles and their SA. Higher commitment to social roles of continued development and engagement was related to a younger subjective age, above and beyond sociodemographic variables, physical and mental health, but only for younger men. Commitment to family roles was related to a younger subjective age only for older men. Implications for the gender-specific understanding of antecedents of SA are discussed.