Abstract: Utilizing the Chinese Health and Retirement Longitudinal Survey,this study constructs the measure of biological age of Chinese elderly and tests its validity. In comparison to other health measures used in survey,the biological age shows several prominent advantages in the following aspects.First,the biological age,as a comprehensive measure of people’s physiological condition,can well predict individual’s mortality risk and health status in various dimensions. Second,it can reflect the diverging health status among the middle age and younger old-age people when many health problems have not been discovered. Third,compared with the subjective health measures,the biological age can eliminate the bias of reference point by different groups. Finally,the influence of chronological age on health can be eliminated from the biological age model. Based on the hierarchical linear regression model,it is found that education level is the most reliable factor that affects individual’s biological age and cohort can significantly differentiate old people’s health. In particular,individuals born during the great famine period may be confronted with a greater physiological risk.

Keywords: Biological Age, Chronological Age, Heterogeneity of Aging Process

摘要：

文章利用中国健康与养老追踪调查(CHARLS)的血检数据构建老年人生理年龄测量,并检验其有效性。相对于问卷调查中常用的其他健康测量,生理年龄有以下几个突出的优点:(1) 能全面体现个人的生理健康,是多个维度健康和死亡风险的显著预测指标。 (2) 能很好地反映中年和年轻年老人潜在的健康风险差异。 (3) 比起主观健康测量,能在一定程度上消除因回答基准点不同而产生的偏误。 (4)在测量模型的假设下,利用生理年龄可以直接消除日历年龄对健康测量的影响。此外,基于分层
线性模型的结果发现,受教育程度是影响生理年龄差异的最稳定因素。 队列在中国老年人的生理健康上存在显著的分化作用。

关键词: 生理年龄, 日历年龄, 老龄化异质性