13.1 Who are the elderly? aging in society  (Page 4/22)

There is an element of social construction, both local and global, in the way individuals and nations define who is elderly; that is, the shared meaning of the concept of elderly is created through interactions among people in society. This is exemplified by the truism that you are only as old as you feel.

Demographically, the U.S. population over age 65 increased from 3 million in 1900 to 33 million in 1994 (Hobbs 1994) and to 36.8 million in 2010 (U.S. Census Bureau 2011c). This is a greater than tenfold increase in the elderly population, compared to a mere tripling of both the total population and of the population under 65 (Hobbs 1994). This increase has been called “the graying of America,” a term that describes the phenomenon of a larger and larger percentage of the population getting older and older. There are several reasons why America is graying so rapidly. One of these is life expectancy    : the average number of years a person born today may expect to live. When reviewing Census Bureau statistics grouping the elderly by age, it is clear that in the United States, at least, we are living longer. Between 2000 and 2012, the number of elderly citizens between 90 and 94 increased by more than 30 percent, and the number of elderly citizens 95 to 99 increased by almost 30 percent. Finally, the number of centenarians    (those 100 years or older) increased by 2,910: a mere 5.8 percent, but impressive nonetheless (Werner 2011).

It is interesting to note that not all Americans age equally. Most glaring is the difference between men and women; as the graph below shows, women have longer life expectancies than men. In 2010, there were ninety 65-year-old men per one hundred 65-year-old women. However, there were only eighty 75-year-old men per one hundred 75-year-old women, and only sixty 85-year-old men per one hundred 85-year-old women. Nevertheless, as the graph shows, the sex ratio actually increased over time, indicating that men are closing the gap between their life spans and those of women (U.S. Census Bureau 2010).

Baby boomers

Of particular interest to gerontologists right now is the population of baby boomers    , the cohort born between 1946 and 1964 and just now reaching age 65. Coming of age in the 1960s and early 1970s, the baby boom generation was the first group of children and teenagers with their own spending power and therefore their own marketing power (Macunovich 2000). As this group has aged, it has redefined what it means to be young, middle aged, and, now, old. People in the boomer generation do not want to grow old the way their grandparents did; the result is a wide range of products designed to ward off the effects—or the signs—of aging. Previous generations of people over 65 were “old.” Baby boomers are in “later life” or “the third age” (Gilleard and Higgs 2007).