The perception of advanced adults towards age discrimination and older people (Kastamonu example)

Aging is the last stage of life that living things inevitably experience, which can only be delayed but not stopped. The whole world has been facing the problem of graying of its population for about half century as a result of the progress in health, the improvement in socio-economic life standards, and the decreasing birth rates with the entry of women into working life with industrialization and modernization. All of these have led to the perception of old age as a problem and to intervention through social policies in this part of the society, which states define as dependent population. Elders who were wise in the extended family lost their existing authority with the transition to the core family. Reasons such as the change in family structure, extended life expectancy, aging of the population and a series of bio-psycho-social and economic regressions brought by the old age, seeing old age as close to death, negative attitudes towards the elderly in the media, bring up the concept of age and age discrimination. Age discrimination, especially for the elderly, has negative effects on the experience of the old age phase. There is no awareness of age discrimination, while there is awareness of the types of discrimination such as gender, race, religion. Comprehensive related literature that can be reached for the research was examined, the Aging Attitude Scale (EDAS) was used for the survey, and the obtained SPSS22 program was analyzed. It has been concluded that there is positive attitude towards the elderly.