Short answer. Not necessarily by itself. Article 78 defines handicapped workers as those whose earning capacity is impaired by age, or by physical or mental deficiency or injury. Age is a separate, sufficient basis on its own — no accompanying deficiency is needed — but only if that age has actually impaired the person's earning capacity, not simply because they are older.
What the law says
Handicapped workers are those whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury.
Labor Code, Article 78 — Handicapped Workers Defined. Read the full provision →
What Article 78 actually defines
Article 78 gives a single-sentence definition: handicapped workers are those whose earning capacity is impaired by age or physical or mental deficiency or injury. The article names three possible causes of the impairment — age, physical or mental deficiency, and injury — and connects them with 'or,' meaning any one of the three, standing alone, is enough to bring a worker within the definition. Nothing in the text requires more than one of these causes to be present at the same time.
Age stands as its own basis, separate from deficiency or injury
Because age is listed as its own separate ground, alongside physical or mental deficiency and injury, a worker does not need to also show a distinct physical or mental deficiency to qualify through age. If age has impaired the worker's earning capacity, that fact by itself satisfies the definition, without requiring an additional diagnosis or injury layered on top of it. Age is treated as capable of doing the same work, on its own, that a deficiency or injury does elsewhere in the sentence.
The word that does the real work: 'impaired'
The word carrying the real weight in the definition is impaired. The article does not define handicapped workers as those who are simply old; it defines them as those whose earning capacity has actually been reduced, and age is one of the things that can cause that reduction. So the question the definition asks is not how old someone is, but whether their capacity to earn has genuinely been impaired, whatever caused it.
So what does 'old age alone' actually mean here
Put together, 'old age alone' is really two different questions wearing one phrase. If it means 'can age, without a separate physical or mental deficiency, be the qualifying cause,' the answer under Article 78 is yes. If it means 'does merely being old, without any actual impairment of earning capacity, qualify someone,' the answer is no — the article's definition turns on impaired earning capacity, not on age as a number by itself. That distinction matters in practice, because whatever protections or terms the Labor Code attaches to handicapped workers elsewhere are tied to this same definition, so an employer or worker relying on it needs to look at actual impairment, not simply years lived, before assuming the classification applies.