Fifty doesn’t necessarily feel like 50 anymore.
For many professionals, it can mean running a company, starting one, taking on a bigger role, changing careers or deciding that retirement is still a very long way off. At 60, an executive may be leading one of the most ambitious periods of his career. At 65, he may be consulting, sitting on boards or launching an entirely new chapter.
But sometimes there’s a disconnect.
The person looking back from the mirror or increasingly, from the Zoom screen may seem older or more tired than the person living inside the face.
That disconnect is more than a clever observation. Researchers who study “subjective age” have found that as people grow older, many consistently report feeling younger than their chronological age.
Combine that with longer careers and an increasingly visual business culture, and it raises an interesting question for the Business Face:
What happens when your professional ambition hasn’t gotten older, but you believe your face has?
We’re Working Later in Life
The traditional career timeline has changed. For many Americans, 60 or 65 no longer represents an automatic exit from professional life.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projections illustrate the shift. In 2023, 26.9% of Americans ages 65 to 74 participated in the labor force. By 2033, BLS projects that figure will reach 30.4%. Among people 75 and older, participation is projected to increase from 8.3% to 10.1%.
The projections are even more striking for men. By 2033, BLS projects that 33% of men ages 65 to 74 will participate in the labor force, along with 12.5% of men 75 and older.
That means a professional man in his 50s isn’t necessarily approaching the end of his career. He could reasonably have another 10, 15 or even 20 years of professional life ahead of him and that changes the psychology of aging at work.
We Don’t Necessarily Feel Our Age
There’s another fascinating piece of research that helps explain the disconnect.
Scientists call it subjective age: essentially, how old someone feels compared with the number on his driver’s license.
In a representative study of 1,470 adults between ages 20 and 97, researchers found that people over 40 reported feeling, on average, about 20% younger than their actual age.
A much larger 2021 meta-analysis reviewed 294 studies of subjective age. Among adults 60 and older, people felt on average roughly 13% to 18% younger than their chronological age, with the pattern appearing across geographic regions.
So the 55-year-old who says he still feels 45 isn’t necessarily kidding himself. He’s actually pretty typical. That can create an interesting disconnect when appearance doesn’t align with self-perception.
Dr. Douglas Steinbrech has spent much of his career working in male aesthetics and hearing how men describe that discrepancy. Steinbrech is the author of Male Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, a medical reference devoted specifically to male aesthetic procedures, and currently serves as Treasurer/Secretary of The Aesthetic Society.
“Many of these men don’t feel like they’re slowing down professionally, so it can be surprising when they feel their appearance tells a different story. They’re not trying to reclaim a younger age; they want the person they see in the mirror to feel more consistent with the energy and ambition they still have.” Dr. Steinbrech stated.
That distinction is important.
A man who feels 45 at 55 isn’t necessarily asking anyone to believe he’s 45. He may simply be surprised that the face he sees doesn’t seem to communicate the energy he still feels.
The Identity Question
That makes this conversation less about youth and more about identity.
Consider a 58-year-old entrepreneur who has just launched a second company. Professionally, he may feel more ambitious than he did at 40. He has more experience, stronger relationships and perhaps more confidence. He’s not winding down. He’s ramping up. Yet he may notice changes around his eyes that make him think he looks exhausted. Or he sees himself on camera and believes his face communicates stress he doesn’t actually feel. The issue isn’t necessarily, “I don’t want to be 58, it may be, “That doesn’t look like how I feel at 58.”
Research suggests subjective age can even have implications in the workplace. Across three studies involving 650 people ages 16 to 85, researchers found that older adults who felt relatively younger reported greater self-perceived competence at work and were more likely to demonstrate proactive workplace behaviors such as speaking up.
That doesn’t mean feeling younger causes professional success. But it does suggest that chronological age and professional identity aren’t always perfectly aligned.
According to Dr. Steinbrech “They don’t want to erase 20 or 30 years of experience from their face, and they shouldn’t. That maturity is part of who they are. What they’re often looking for is a way to preserve that character while addressing the things they feel are out of sync with how they see themselves.”
Experience Is Part of the Face, Too
There is a danger in talking about aging entirely as something to correct. For a successful professional, age can be part of his credibility.
A 60-year-old CEO has had experiences a 35-year-old CEO simply hasn’t had time to accumulate. He may have navigated recessions, built teams, survived business failures, negotiated deals and spent decades developing expertise. Some of that experience is naturally reflected in his appearance. And he may want it to be.
This is where Business Face becomes very different from the simplistic idea of “anti-aging.”
The objective isn’t necessarily to remove every line, eliminate every gray hair or create the illusion that someone is decades younger. Professional identity can actually benefit from maturity. The more nuanced question is whether someone feels his appearance reflects his version of maturity.
But Who Decided Looking Older Was a Problem?
There’s an important counterpoint.
If a man feels energetic at 60 but worries that colleagues see him as old, the problem may not be his face. It may be ageism.
Research has documented age-related stereotypes surrounding characteristics such as health, personality and skills. One NBER study examining job advertisements found that language reflecting stereotypes about older workers sometimes predicted age discrimination in hiring; for men in that study, stereotypes across health, personality and skill categories were associated with discriminatory outcomes.
Separate experimental research found that age-stereotyped language in job advertisements can actually discourage older workers from applying for jobs in the first place.
That’s an important distinction.
If an older professional worries that looking his age could make people assume he’s less adaptable, less energetic or less technologically capable, asking him to change his appearance doesn’t solve the underlying problem. The stereotype does.
Aesthetic treatment can’t, and shouldn’t be positioned as a defense against age discrimination.
Maybe “Anti-Aging” Is the Wrong Goal
The phrase itself may be outdated. Anti-aging suggests a battle against something inevitable. But a 60-year-old professional doesn’t necessarily want to be 40 again, he may like who he is at 60. He may have more confidence, more expertise, more perspective and more professional freedom.
What he may want is for the person he sees in the mirror to feel recognizable. That could mean aesthetic treatment. It could also mean changing a hairstyle, improving sleep, exercising, updating a wardrobe, paying more attention to skincare, or doing absolutely nothing.
There isn’t one correct way to age professionally. And feeling younger than your chronological age doesn’t mean you need to look younger than it either.
When the Face Finally Gets the Memo
Perhaps the most interesting thing about longer careers is that they’re forcing us to rethink what professional aging actually looks like. Fifty no longer signals the beginning of the end of a career, just as turning 60 doesn’t necessarily mean slowing down. And reaching 70 certainly doesn’t mean someone has stopped contributing. As the workforce evolves to reflect that reality, the Business Face conversation needs to evolve with it.
The goal shouldn’t be a workplace filled with 60-year-olds trying to look 40. Instead, it should be one where people can remain ambitious, visible and professionally relevant well into their 50s, 60s, 70s and beyond, without feeling that their age is something they need to hide or apologize for. Perhaps the real disconnect isn’t that someone’s face looks too old; it’s that our perception of what an ambitious, engaged and successful 60-year-old is supposed to look like hasn’t caught up with the reality of how people are living and working today.