title: New Approaches to the Conceptualization and Measurement of Age and Aging.
abstract: Most studies of population aging focus on only one characteristic of people: their chronological age. Many important characteristics of people vary with age, but age-specific characteristics also vary over time and differ from place to place. We supplement traditional measures of aging with new ones that consider the changing characteristics of people.
  
  
  
  The characteristics approach to measuring of population aging is employed. We provide examples of new measures of population aging using characteristics, such as remaining life expectancy, health, normal public pension age, and hand-grip strength.
  
  
  
  Past and future population aging look less rapid using the characteristics approach, compared with traditional ones. For some regions, almost no aging occurred in the recent past.
  
  
  
  Supplementing chronological age with ages that take into account the changing characteristics of people allows us to analyze aging more comprehensively and more accurately.
authors: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow, Russia scherbov@iiasa.ac.at.
authors: Sergei
authors: S
authors: Scherbov
authors: International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria Stony Brook University, NY, USA.
authors: Warren C
authors: WC
authors: Sanderson
mesh_terms: D000203:Activities of Daily Living; D000375:Aging; D035843:Biomedical Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D004522:Educational Status; D015991:Epidemiologic Measurements; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D018737:Hand Strength; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008017:Life Expectancy / Q000639:trends*; D008297:Male; D011157:Population Dynamics / Q000639:trends*; D017678:Sex Distribution
keywords: aging; characteristics approach; prospective age