Seeing fewer older people in the street may lead low-income adults to fast-track their lives
Tuesday, September 18, 2012 - 10:32
in Psychology & Sociology
Why do people in deprived areas live life in the fast lane? It may be because of the age of people they observe in the street, according to a new study by Daniel Nettle and colleagues from Newcastle University in the UK. Their work suggests that because fewer older people are seen out in the street in deprived neighborhoods, younger generations assume that people die young. As a result, they may be adapting the speed at which they live their lives accordingly—for example, by having children earlier in life. Nettle and team's work is published online in Springer's journal Human Nature.