How Health and Aging Have Changed in Canada
Twenty years ago, Environics asked Canadians over 50 how they felt about getting older. This year, we went back to the field and asked many of the same questions, gaining a unique opportunity to compare two groups of Canadians at the same stage of life, twenty years apart.
As the leader of our Health & Wellness practice, I was eager to dive into the findings on health – and the results didn’t disappoint. What stood out to me was not any one data point, but how consistently health is woven through the broader story of aging in Canada.
This might not sound surprising: we know that health challenges tend to grow as we age, and even for those in great health it’s typical for well-being to become a greater preoccupation as the years pass and maintaining good function and energy demands more effort and attention.
Changing health status has always been part of aging – and yet we see significant differences between 50+ Canadians today compared to those 20 years ago in terms of how they perceive and experience these changes. The relevance of these findings extends well beyond healthcare. Canadians 50+ now represent 38% of the population, up from 31% twenty years ago. Health has a significant impact on how people live, work, spend and plan for the future, making it increasingly important for organizations across industries to understand the health, needs and expectations of Canadians 50+.
Two Decades of Change: How Canadians 50+ See Their Health
Looking across the health findings, we see some important shifts in how Canadians 50+ perceive their health compared with people at the same stage of life twenty years ago. In 2005, 22% of Canadians 50+ described their health as excellent. Today, only 7% do. Overall, Canadians 50+ still feel relatively positive about their health: 76% rate it as good, very good or excellent, compared with 79% in 2005. But underneath that relatively stable topline, there has been a significant shift in how strongly people rate their health, with far fewer feeling they’re in top form compared to 20 years ago.
We see a similar shift elsewhere in the research. In 2005, 63% of Canadians 50+ felt their generation was healthier than their parents’ generation at the same age. Today, that number is 50%. And when we asked people to think back to the expectations they had in their 20s, only 25% said their health today was better than they expected, compared with 34% twenty years ago who said their after-50 health exceeded their youthful expectations.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, health is at the heart of people’s descriptions of their experience of getting older. When we asked Canadians 50+, without providing any response options, about the worst thing about being their current age, health and physical wellbeing were by far the most common response: 42% mentioned it, up from 32% twenty years ago.
Taken together, these findings paint a nuanced picture of health and aging in Canada. We often think about progress in health in terms of people living longer, advances in medicine and technology, and our growing ability to prevent, diagnose and manage disease. The past 20 years have seen important gains in all these areas. But the data shows that sense of progress isn’t necessarily reflected in how Canadians 50+ perceive their own health.
Beyond the Topline
One of the things I find most exciting about this research is how much more there is to explore beyond these topline findings. How people perceive their health is complex and likely shaped by many different factors, and this data gives us an opportunity to look more closely at where these shifts are happening and for whom, including how perceptions differ by age, gender and financial security, and how they relate to things like quality of life. It also gives us a strong starting point for identifying the questions we want to ask next to better understand what might be driving these changes.
Our Life After 50: Two Decades of Change in Canada report explores the broader findings on health, quality of life, financial security, retirement and what Canadians value as they get older.
Over the coming months, we’ll be digging further into the data to explore some of the differences within Canada’s 50+ population and what they could mean for organizations trying to understand and support this population. Download the report to explore the findings and stay connected as we continue to share new insights from the research.
