Question
What is age?
Answer
Let's talk about age. So simply, what is age? The dictionary says age is the length of time that someone is alive. It is a chronological marker that is based on how many years someone has been on earth.
The way that we count years in the Western world, is based on the Gregorian calendar. You have 365 days to a year, 12 months to a year, 10 years to a decade, and so forth.
So we know that in the U.S., that is how we count age, but there is also a different perspective to take on age, and this leads me to how and why age has become to be understood as something that is more than a chronological marker. Therefore, age and by extension aging is a social construct.
This Ask the Expert is an edited excerpt from the webinar, Ageism 101, presented by Makieya Kamara, MSW, MNL, LCSW
Continued and its subsidiaries provide professional education authored by qualified Subject Matter Experts for continuing education purposes. These materials are intended for educational purposes and do not constitute medical advice or a substitute for individual clinical judgment. Continued is not a clinical healthcare provider; the licensed professional is solely responsible for ensuring that the application of any techniques or information presented is within their legal scope of practice and jurisdictional requirements.
