The Graying of America
The world's population is getting older. Two thousand years ago, a newborn baby in Rome could expect to live to the ripe old age of 22. In fact, for most of human history the average life expectancy was less than 20 years, with most people failing to survive the first few years of life. According to the World Bank, the average baby born today can expect to live to be 67, although there is enormous variation, depending on where the baby is born - from an average life expectancy of 85 for women in Japan to one of 32 in Swaziland for both men and women.
These changes are due to many factors. Modern agriculture, sanitation systems, epidemic control, and medicine have all contributed to a decline in mortality throughout the world. In most societies today, fewer children die in infancy and more adults survive to become elderly. As a result, there are a variety of social consequences for the increased elderly population.
The U.S. population, like other industrial societies, is aging even faster than the preindustrial societies of the world. Thanks to better nutrition and health care, people are living longer. They are also having fewer children. As a result, the median age of the population is rising. In 1850, half the population was younger than 19, and half were older. Today, half are over 35; by the middle of the century, half will be over 40. As a result, the United States and other industrial societies are said to be "graying."
Graying is experiencing an increase in the proportion of the population becoming elderly.
Graying is the result of two long-term trends in industrial societies: the tendency of families to have fewer children and the fact that people are living longer. The average life expectancy at birth for all Americans increased from 47 years for someone born in 1900 to 78 years for someone born today. The average U.S. male born today can expect to live to about 75; for females, the figure is over 80.
Most of these gains occurred in the first half of the twentieth century and were largely because of the improved chances for survival among the young. Although relatively few people made it to the age of 65 in the year 1900, most of those who did, could expect to live to age 77, which is almost as long as those who make it to 65 today, who can expect to live to 83 (National Center for Health Statistics 2008).
Those persons who were healthy and robust enough to survive through infancy, childhood, early adulthood, and mid-adulthood had protective resources that enabled them to live many years in later life.
Because of the graying of the American population, there are today roughly thirty-seven million Americans older than 65, a figure forecast to top seventy million people by the year 2030. According to U.S. Bureau of the Census estimates, 25% of all people reaching age 65 today will live to be 90.
By the middle of this century, that figure is expected to rise to 42%. According to some projections, by that time, there may be as many as two million living Americans who have celebrated their one-hundredth birthday. These trends have enormous importance for the future of American society. In a culture that often worships eternal youth, what will happen when a quarter of the population is over 65?
In order to study the different experiences that older people have had and will continue to have, many sociologists use birth cohorts. A person born in 1900 who turned 65 in 1965 had a very different experience than a person who was born in 1949 and turned 65 in the year 2014. Likewise, a person born in 2014 will have a very different experience when he or she turns 65 in 2079. Because each new cohort experiences society in its own way under unique historical conditions, it inevitably contributes to social change by reinterpreting cultural values, beliefs, and attitudes.
A birth cohort is a collection of all people who share a particular experience, particularly through being born during the same time period.
How do people age?
Studying aging is a bit like examining a moving target: As people grow older, society itself changes at the same time, and so does the very meaning of being "old." For Americans born in the first quarter of the twentieth century, a high school education was regarded as more than sufficient for most available jobs, and most people did not expect to live much past their sixties. And then only at the cost of suffering a variety of disabilities.
Today those very same people find themselves in their seventies and eighties; many are relatively healthy, unwilling to disengage from work and social life, and in need of more schooling than they ever dreamed would be necessary.
Social gerontology is a discipline concerned with the study of the social aspects of aging.
Aging is sociologically defined as the combination of biological, psychological, and social processes that affect people as they grow older.
These three processes suggest the metaphor of three different, although interrelated, developmental clocks:
1. A biological one, which refers to the physical body
2. A psychological one, which refers to the mind and mental
capabilities
3. A social one, which refers to cultural norms, values, and role expectations having to do with age
Our notions about the meaning of age rapidly changes, both because recent research is dispelling many myths about aging and because advances in nutrition and health have enabled many people to live longer, healthier lives than ever before.
