Individuals’ perceptions of aging are important predictors of old-age health. They are influenced by both individuals’ own life experiences as well as socially and culturally shared beliefs. This study seeks to understand how elders’ self-perception of aging varies over time and across cohorts in China. Using seven-wave data spanning over 16 years, this study focuses on exploring inter- and intra-cohort variations on elders’ attitudes toward their own-aging. The results show that elders in more recent cohorts had both higher levels of unhappiness and feelings of uselessness with age. Age effects indicate that elders feel increasingly less happy and less useful with the progression of their own biological age, and the age effects remain significant after accounting for elders’ socioeconomic status, demographic characteristics and a list of time-varying events.