Abstract:

The nature & impact of aging trends in the US are discussed with a specific focus on the failure of public opinion & policy to maintain pace with actual social transformations. Despite a historical orientation toward individualism, self-reliance, & youth, the US has become an increasingly aged nation characterized by low mortality & birth rates in the last half century: demographic analysis evidences an unprecedented concentration of older citizens, retirees, grandparents, & great-grandparents. The structural lag of the present system is highlighted by the vast disparity between political/sociological depictions of the collapse of the US family, & the reality of greater numbers of shared years between parents/children & emerging structures of intergenerational support mechanisms. Furthermore, the system has failed to recognize or accommodate the increasing numbers of grandparents & great-grandparents who are called on to act as primary caregivers for earlier generations' children. Policies pertaining to the income, health care, social services, & housing of the elderly are discussed with the goal of developing a more responsive policy-making process.