ABSTRACT

This chapter examines some ways in which age is commonly used in social research, considering both its problems and its potential as a variable. Age is used very commonly as a descriptive category in a wide range of social research, including demographic: that is, the age of the total population or a given group within it is simply documented, but not necessarily used in the process of constructing explanatory accounts. The documentation of the age structure of a population is important for understanding social and cultural contexts of a given society at a specific point in time. Researchers ought to be in a position to relate their data to relevant demographic data on the particular population which they are studying. Much social research utilizes the notion of age groups, identified either by numerical boundaries based on calendar age, or by less clearly designated terms such as childhood, youth, middle age, and so on.