Is Age Quantitative or Qualitative Data?

The basics

Examples of quantitative characteristics are age, BMI, creatinine, and time from birth to death. Examples of qualitative characteristics are gender, race, genotype and vital status.

Is age a qualitative variable?

A qualitative variable is a variable that expresses a quality. Values do not have numerical meaning and cannot be ordered numerically. Height, mass, age, and shoe size would all be measured in terms of numbers. So, these categories do not contain qualitative data.

Why is age a quantitative data?

Quantitative variables take numerical values and represent some kind of measurement. In our medical example, age is an example of a quantitative variable because it can take on multiple numerical values. It also makes sense to think about it in numerical form; that is, a person can be 18 years old or 80 years old.