Page 115 - IJPS-11-1

International Journal of
Population Studies Developing individual active aging measurement tool

and body functioning, mental functioning and activity, to increase opportunities to age actively. The concept of
and social relationships and contact (Bowling, 2008; 2009; the Active Aging Index (AAI) incorporates an economic
Stenner et al., 2011). References to activity or participation dimension that involves the inclusion of older persons in
are also found in their own perspectives, in which physical, the labor market and other productive activities. However,
mental, and social activities are mixed, alluding to a it cannot be used to measure active aging at an individual
general active lifestyle in which all these are included. In level since its indicators are macrolevel-oriented, such as
doing so, they highlight leisure, family care, volunteering, healthy life expectancy, and the result provided is based on
learning, traveling, or physical activity (e.g., Bowling, 2008; the aggregate number of older people that meet different
Hasmanová, 2011; Stenner et al., 2011; Townsend et al., indicators.
2006; Venn & Arber, 2011), whereas employment was In academic literature, some attempts to measure active
not clearly included (Venn & Arber, 2011). A complete aging at an individual level can also be found. In recent
representation covering the main dimensions, highlighted years, empirical models have been developed, but tools
by the different approaches and debates around active to measure this concept with a multidimensional and
aging, is less frequently found in the research (Montero inclusive conception are scarce. Existing measurements
et al., 2011; Paúl et al., 2012; Perales et al., 2014). are focused either on specific dimensions of active aging

1.2. Literature on measurements of active aging or have been developed through a closed list of criteria,
which may exclude some people and do not represent
At present, there is still an absence of a gold standard for older people’s ways of engaging. Therefore, in contrast
rating active aging. This concept has been partially assessed to the intentions when conceptualizing active aging as a
by considering some specific elements such as employment, broad concept, measurement in studies has been made
social participation, and, less frequently, leisure time, and through dichotomous and criteria variables created when
activities (Marsillas, 2016), whereas relatively few studies all its elements were met (e.g., Fernández-Ballesteros
have measured it from a broad conception. In those cases, et al., 2007; Lucena et al., 2010; Montero et al., 2011).
items or scales were used separately when measuring The inclusion criteria tend to be relatively high, and the
the components of the concept (Caprara et al., 2013), or compulsory fulfillment of them creates rigid ways of active
they were measured through the compliance of a list of aging (Perales et al., 2014). This operationalization can
criteria to create a dichotomous variable representing also result in the exclusion of people with some disabilities,
active aging (Bélanger et al., 2017; Fernández-Ballesteros which contradicts the statements of WHO (2002).
et al., 2007). This measurement procedure is too strict Conversely, engagement in life should be promoted even
because it generally delimits active aging to a specific when constraints are present by adapting the forms to each
group of people and is not sufficiently flexible to depict the person’s situation (Boudiny, 2013), such as the assessment
evolution of people. Another approach was the summative method developed to measure active aging (Rantanen et al.,
measurement of dichotomous variables and the creation of 2019). In the case of the AAI, population- and macrolevel
a continuous variable for active aging (Perales et al., 2014). approaches focusing on productive participation and health

In the past few years, instruments have been developed to variables do not cover the gap of a tool that contributes to
quantitatively measure active aging, with the Active Aging quantifying active aging in older adults. For this reason,
Index (Zaidi et al., 2013) being the most acknowledged. it is necessary to measure the concept of active aging,
It was developed based on the population perspective, which represents inter- and intra-individual variability as a
with the collaboration of the European Commission’s continuum (Bowling, 2008).
Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion Directorate
General and the United Nations Economic Commission 1.3. Aims of this study
for Europe (UNECE). This toolkit is developed as an The aims of this study were threefold. First, we developed
index targeted at policymakers and aimed at measuring a new measurement tool based on a tested model of active
the potential of active aging at a country level based on aging (Marsillas et al., 2017), focusing on the individual
22 indicators organized in four domains: (i) employment; level. This tool was developed considering the debates
(ii) participation in society; (iii) independent, healthy, and about active aging and by combining the most important
secure living; and (iv) capacity and enabling environment dimensions found in the scientific literature regarding the
for active aging. The information for each indicator comes elements enhanced by policy, research, and lay approaches.
from secondary data sources for 28 European countries, By including both health, conceived as a global concept,
such as the European Social Survey. The index sheds and participation, as a broad variety of alternative ways to
light on the effectiveness of existing strategies and points actively age, it intends to represent more diverse population
out the environmental elements that can be improved groups sometimes excluded by measurement procedures.

Volume 11 Issue 1 (2025) 109 https://doi.org/10.36922/ijps.428