ABSTRACT
As a result of ongoing medical advancement, the proportion of elderly people has drastically increased in many societies, making aging an issue of increasing concern. Quantitative aspects of age are global population aging and the prompt changes in social attitudes toward aging. In the United States, where the median age is 38.0 and productive and physical skills of youth are integrated into a national aesthetic, growing old is regarded as a tragedy.1 By contrast, in Japan, which has the one of the world’s oldest median ages of 46.5, younger people often suffer agism within the country’s Confucian seniority system.2
