Cumulative research has indicated that age identity is closely linked to health and well-being, although it remains a mostly unexplored concept among older adults in China. We conducted a secondary data analysis using data drawn from the three waves of the Sample Survey on the Aged Population in Urban/Rural China. Descriptive statistics were used to examine perceived (onset of) old age and feel-age. The results indicate that in 2000, men were perceived to be of old age at 63.70 years, whereas women were perceived to be of old age at 59.95 years. The results also show that 85, 79 and 76% of the respondents reported feeling old in 2000, 2006 and 2010, respectively. However, increasingly more of them began reporting that they did not feel old. The findings show that age identity is not a simple function of chronological age, but that it has its own unique characteristics in reflecting the process of ageing. Finally, this paper discusses the practical and policy implications of these findings.

過往累積的研究表明，年齡認同與健康和福祉密切相關。然而，對中國老年人而言，年齡認同仍舊是幾乎未被探討的一個概念。本文使用‘中國城鄉老年人口狀況抽樣調查’的三輪調查數據，進行了二次分析，對‘感知的老年（開始期）’和‘感覺的年齡’進行了描述分析。分析結果顯示，在2000年，男性的‘感知的老年’開始期為63.70歲；女性的‘感知的老年’開始期為59.95歲。結果還顯示，在2000年、2006年以及2010年，分別有85%、79% 和76% 的受訪者認為自己老了。不過越來越多的受訪者開始覺得自己還沒有老。這些發現揭示了年齡認同在反映老化過程中的獨特性，而非與年齡有著簡單的一一對應關系。本文還討論了本研究的實踐與政策意義。

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