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| Indiana University Professor
Emeritus of Economics George Stolnitz calls global population aging "the
foremost issue in the public welfare debate." Photo
© 2001 Tyagan Miller. |
George Stolnitz knows better than most what
such numbers mean. For more than 50 years, Stolnitz,
a professor emeritus of economics at IU Bloomington, has studied demographics.
He’s analyzed the impacts of wars and technology. His work on mortality
rates has led the way in the field. “This one,” he says, “beats
everything.”
“This one” is global population
aging, the rapidly expanding number of people around the world who are 60
or over. “When you consider the numbers of elderly people around the
world,” Stolnitz says, “there are very, very few things that compete
with the importance of global aging. I’ve seen numbers I can’t believe.”
In short, adequate housing, sustenance, and
medical care for the aged are far from guaranteed.
“We have an enormously large and rapidly
expanding pool of elderly people who are causing great changes in the demand
for medical help and other kinds of support and assistance,” Stolnitz
says. “The question is, where does that support come from?”
The answer is, in part, an active labor force,
especially among populations with traditional social security systems in which
workers pay for retiree benefits. As people age and fertility rates drop,
however, there are likely to be fewer workers to support the elderly. In more
developed regions, ratios of working-age to retired persons are expected to
decline from five-to-one to two-to-one. In regions less developed, the decline
may be from 12-to-one to four-to-one.
The supply of new workers will also decline.
In developed regions, fertility is expected to decline to 1.5 children per
woman in less than 10 years. Even in high-fertility countries, where fertility
was 5.74 children per woman from 1995 to 2000, the number could drop to 2.51
children per woman by 2045–2050.
“Where are you going to get the workers?”
Stolnitz asks. “More and more people to take care of with less and less
resources—this entire dilemma is the most widespread and foremost issue
in the public welfare debate.”
Besides a shortfall in the supply of workers,
quality-of-life issues crop up too. Nearly all global population growth during
the next several decades will be in urban areas. Although living close to
needed services can benefit older people, moves to urban areas are not necessarily
positive, Stolnitz observes, and other experts agree.
“The most pressing housing needs in
the Third World are in the massive urban networks that have arisen around
the globe,” says Phillip Stafford,
adjunct associate professor in anthropology at IUB and director of Evergreen
Institute on Elder Environments, an organization that has “the goal
of creating good places to grow old,” as Stafford puts it. “Elders
who have emigrated from rural areas find themselves growing old in cities
that do not accommodate their needs,” he continues. “For example,
health care may be provided, but transit systems needed to access care are
inaccessible.”
Housing is a critical concern. Children may
wish to take care of the elders who cared for them, but multigenerational
households can be problematic. Living with grown children or other family
members may mean an elder’s loss of autonomy and privacy as well as alienation
from older-age peers.
“Despite our stereotypes about the culture
of respect for elders in other places around the world,” says Stafford,
“the reality of multigenerational living is difficult. Often it’s
a necessity, not a choice.”
Stafford adds that what elders want is a
“home,” not simply housing. “Home is a profound concept,”
he says. “It implies a set of personal relationships and a material environment
of support, comfort, and familiarity. In short, ‘home’ is not equivalent
to housing, but ‘home’ can be created in a variety of types of housing.
Public policy discussions about ‘housing for the elderly’ need to
be framed with this in mind.”
Then there’s health. Many people live
on their own into their “oldest old” years, but eventually, health
complications naturally accelerate. “Increasing life expectancy is a
positive thing,” Stolnitz emphasizes, “but what can one do, for
instance, about an 80-year-old woman who has trouble with the activities of
daily living along with meeting the expenses of Medicare and other prescriptions?”
Stolnitz’s assessment of the challenges
ahead is somber. “There are enormous problems and imbalances,” he
says. “For example, how do you allocate finite resources appropriately
between support for the elderly and the young who need education? How are
we going to meet such problems adequately?”
But his serious questions may inspire more
active responses from researchers and policymakers in meeting the material
needs of the old. Among the policy directions Stolnitz suggests:
The baby boomers—or “zoomers,”
as a U.S. News & World Report cover story on retirement has called
them—may be the demographic powerhouse that redefines aging, but in the
end, Stolnitz says, responding to population aging comes down to meeting two
underlying human needs: “What do the aging want in addition to material
well-being? Companionship and attention.”
Stolnitz has both in his Bloomington home,
where he lives with his wife and receives visits from his three daughters
and six grandchildren. And zoomers take note: In his 80s, Stolnitz still works
in his second-floor office, pondering what the numbers say about the future
of aging in the 21st century.
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