And a new study has discovered the fear of becoming old may actually outweigh the fear of dying.
一项新研究发现，衰老比死亡更让人恐惧。
More than one in six people would prefer to die before they turn 80 - less than the average life expectancy, scientists found.
Hispanics have the highest preference for a shorter life while African-American people are more likely to want to live for 100 or more years, a new study suggests.
But despite women living around five years longer than men, gender had no difference in how long people wanted to live for.
Age and education were also found to be unrelated - despite those with formal education tending to live longer.
The study is one of the first to investigate how younger adults perceive and anticipate their own ageing.
Researchers from the Columbia Aging Center quizzed 1,600 adults aged 18 to 64 in a telephone survey.
They were on average 42 years old, half were women and 33 percent were university graduates.
One in three would prefer to live until they are at least 80 years old, researchers discovered.
While a quarter of adults would prefer to live into their 90s - somewhat longer than expected.
The remaining people said they hoped to live to 100 or more years.
The results confirmed those who had fewer positive expectations of growing old preferred to die earlier, before reaching average life expectancy.
And conversely, those who had fewer negative expectations of old age wanted their lives to go on for longer.
相关单词：outweigh
outweigh解释：vt.比...更重，...更重要
outweigh例句：
The merits of your plan outweigh the defects.你制定的计划其优点胜过缺点。
One's merits outweigh one's short-comings.功大于过。
相关单词：expectancy
expectancy解释：n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额
expectancy例句：
Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。
相关单词：gender
gender解释：n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性
gender例句：
French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。
相关单词：aged
aged解释：adj.年老的，陈年的
aged例句：
He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。
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