As more and more adults face old age alone, society needs to rethink its approach to health and elder care before this demographic shift puts further strain on an already taxed system, according to one Western researcher.
For most of human history, adults have generally been part of dense family networks who cared for them as they aged. But increasingly, adults are facing their ‘golden years’ without a spouse or children. This new living condition portends millions facing an absent support system in old age when care is generally assumed by one’s immediate family.
As more and more adults face old age alone, society needs to rethink its approach to health and elder care before this demographic shift puts further strain on an already taxed system, according to one Western researcher.
For most of human history, adults have generally been part of dense family networks who cared for them as they aged. But increasingly, adults are facing their ‘golden years’ without a spouse or children. This new living condition portends millions facing an absent support system in old age when care is generally assumed by one’s immediate family.
To gain a better understanding of what the future holds for aging Americans, Sociology professor Rachel Margolis partnered with Ashton Verdery of Penn State University to conduct a demographic study using historical census data. Projecting to 2060, theirs is the first study to consider outcomes for older adults living without multiple types of important kin.
They recently published a set of papers – Older Adults Without Close Kin in the United States, in the Journal of Gerontology Social Sciences and Projections of White and Black Older Adults Without Living Kin in the United States, 2015 to 2060, in PNAS.
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