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Ageing has a significant impact on society. People of different ages tend to differ in many aspects, such as legal and social responsibilities, outlook on life, and self-perception. Young people tend to have fewer legal privileges (if they are below the age of majority), they are more likely to push for political and social change, to develop and adopt new technologies, and to need education. Older people have different requirements from society and government, and frequently have differing values as well, such as for property and pension rights. Older people are also more likely to vote, and in many countries the young are forbidden from voting. Thus, the aged have comparatively more, or at least different, political influence. In different societies, age may be viewed or treated differently. For example, age may be measured starting from conception or from birth, and starting at either age zero or age one. Transitions such as reaching puberty, age of majority, or retirement are often socially significant. The concepts of successful aging and healthy aging refer to both social and physical aspects of the aging process.〔〔 == Cultural variations == Arbitrary divisions set to mark periods of life may include: juvenile (via infancy, childhood, preadolescence, adolescence), early adulthood, middle adulthood, and late adulthood. More casual terms may include "teenagers," "tweens," "twentysomething", "thirtysomething", etc. as well as "vicenarian", "tricenarian", "quadragenarian", etc. The age of an adult human is commonly measured in whole years since the day of birth. Fractional years, months or even weeks may be used to describe the age of children and infants for finer resolution. The time of day the birth occurred is not commonly considered. In some cultures there are other ways to express age: by counting years with or without including current year. For example, it could be said for the same person that he is twenty years old or that he is in the twenty-first year of his life. In Russian the former expression is generally used, the latter one has restricted usage: it is used for age of a deceased person in obituaries and for the age of an adult when it is desired to show him/her older than he/she is. (Psychologically, a woman ''in her 20th year'' seems older than one who is ''19 years old''.) Depending on cultural and personal philosophy, ageing can be seen as an undesirable phenomenon, reducing beauty and bringing one closer to death; or as an accumulation of wisdom, mark of survival and a status worthy of respect. In some cases numerical age is important (whether good or bad), whereas others find the stage in life that one has reached (adulthood, independence, marriage, retirement, career success) to be more important. East Asian age reckoning is different from that found in Western culture. Traditional Chinese culture uses a different ageing method, called ''Xusui'' (虛歲) with respect to common ageing which is called ''Zhousui'' (周歲). In the ''Xusui'' method, people are born at age 1, not age 0, possibly because conception is already considered to be the start of the life span and possibly because the number '0' was not historically present in Ancient China, and another difference is the ageing day: ''Xusui'' grows up at the Spring Festival (aka. Chinese New Year's Day), while ''Zhousui'' grows up at one's birthday. In parts of Tibet, age is counted from conception i.e. one is usually 9 months old when one is born. Age in prenatal development is normally measured in gestational age, taking the last menstruation of the mother as a point of beginning. Alternatively, fertilisation age, beginning from fertilisation can be taken. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Aging and society」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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