This paper deals with innovations on the ways and on the experience of aging set up in recent years. Habits, images, beliefs and behaviors related to aging have changed determining the emergence of what is usually called the third age experience. But although it represents innovation and, in many ways, is described as a very positive reformulation of the possibilities of aging, the emergence of the third age also generates questioning and debate. In order to understand the status of this experience in contemporary society, we mapped the discussion on the third age in literature, more specifically on their nature of innovation in relation to the identity of old age. Three hypothesis are highlighted in this analysis: the first suggests that third age can be seen as a new identity, autonomous and other than the identity of old age; the second, that its appearance can be understood as a denial of the social identity of old age; and finally, the third hypothesis assumes that the characteristics of the third age are the result of the generational experience of a particular social group. These main hypotheses about the third age are presented and discussed according to the possibilities of creation, diversification and innovation of subjective experience.
aging; identity; third age