Study Sees Problems for Future Generations of Elderly
America’s elderly enjoyed a “golden age” of economic comfort and longevity in the 1980s, increasing in numbers by 22% to 31 million, according to a study released Tuesday by UCI sociologists.
But consequent decades may or may not be so golden as the aging of America affects funding for health and economic resources and as the elderly population diversifies, the sociologists said.
Sociology professors Judith Treas and Ramon Torrecilha found that more than half of America’s “elderly”--which they defined as 65 and older--were comfortably middle-class.
“The overall picture is that the ‘80s were very good to the elderly population,” Treas said in an interview from San Francisco, where she presented a paper on their findings. At the same time, “there are still people for whom the golden age is not golden.”
Among those are elderly women who are at a special risk for poverty and single status, and aged immigrants who are financially less well off and may have problems stemming from lack of assimilation. Both groups are growing in size, the study found.
“The position of elderly in society is fairly stable, but I think we’re going to see distinct groups of elderly fairing worse than others--overall more disparity,” said Torrecilha of coming decades.
The report, based on the U.S. Census, was presented Tuesday to the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science.
According to the 100-page report--called “The Older Population: Demographic, Social and Economic Trends”--the baby boomers aged in a time of expanding Social Security, Medicare and pension benefits, which contributed to the flourishing of the 65-plus generation in the 1980s, Treas said. But as policies change and the elderly population includes more immigrants and single people, the aging will be more vulnerable to financial and health problems.
“We need to think carefully about how they will be affected under the new health care plan,” co-author Torrecilha said. “You still see that one-quarter of the elderly that are poor or near poor . . . cannot live as independently” as their peers.
The study found that the numbers of Americans who are 65 and older grew twice as fast as the rest of the population in the ‘80s. Among the most noticeable trends were the growth in the numbers of aging minorities. By 2050, the number of aging who are white will have decreased from 87% to 65%. At the same time, aging Latinos and Asian Americans, who make up 3% and 1% of the elderly respectively, will have increased to 15% and 8%. Elderly blacks will go from 8% to 11%.
The study emphasized the diversity within the label “elderly” as well. Though using the traditional retirement-at-65 mark to define the boundary, it conceded that “few Americans keep working to age 65 anymore. . . . “ Users of the traditional label will “have a hard time reconciling the continuing vigor and independence of most 65-year-olds. . . . “
