Explain the social significance of age

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Beyond indicating how old or young a person is, age is socially significant because it defines what is appropriate for or expected of people at various ages.

When people say "Act your age," they are referring to chronological age—a person's age based on date of birth. However, most of us actually estimate a person's age on the basis of functional age—observable individual attributes such as physical appearance, mobility, strength, coordination, and mental capacity that are used to assign people to age categories. Visible characteristics, such as youthful appearance or gray hair and wrinkled skin, may become our criteria for determining whether someone is "young" or "old." According to historian Lois Banner, "appearance, more than any other factor, has occasioned the objectification of aging. We define someone as old because he or she looks old." In fact, feminist scholars believe that functional age is so subjective that it is evaluated differently for women and men—as men age, they are believed to become more distinguished or powerful, whereas when women grow older, they are thought to be "over-the-hill" or grandmotherly.