Those who are very old represent the fastest growing segment of the older adult population in America today.
For example, in Canada from the period of 1990 to 2010, the number of individuals between the ages of 55 and 64 years is expected to increase by 16%. By contrast, the expected increase for persons 55 years of age and older is close to 50%.Further, if we just focus on those individuals who are 60 years and older, the prediction is that this segment of the population will almost double (97%) across the same 20-year interval (Ailinger, R., & Causey, M. 1993). It's called the greying of America.
This year the oldest of the baby boomers, who as a whole represent a hefty 32% of the Canada population, will celebrate their 60th birthday.Most of you are familiar with the term “baby boom”, born between 1946 and 1964. In 1957, Canada births peaked at 8 million and did not fall below four million a year until 1965. Over the next half-century, Canadians born during this 18-year period created our suburbs and generally dictated market and cultural trends by virtue of their numbers and steadily rising postwar incomes.Today, many of the baby boomers enjoy comfortable incomes and accumulated wealth and generally good health. Some 70 percent of them own their own homes, according to the census.
But worries are starting to set in. In 2011, the oldest boomers will turn 65, retirement age.While echo boom is a less familiar term, it's equally significant. The baby boomers generally had children later and in smaller numbers than their prewar generation parents.
But when they did start reproducing, from about 1970 to 1995, they did so with a vengeance.The result: the growth in the under-18 population that's already reverberating in classrooms today. About a fifth of these echo boom children are the offspring of immigrants who arrived in the U.S.
during the 1980s and who often had relatively large families. The ethnic profile created by these immigrant children is far different from the white and black 1950s and 1960s.According to the Census Bureau, the 49 million students enrolled in elementary and high schools and colleges in 1999 equaled the all-time high set in 1970, when the baby boomers themselves started school. By 2010, the 1985 babies will be celebrating their 25th birthday and looking for their first real job, first apartment, and first new car (Gruber ; David 2001).
In between these two large generations come those born between 1965 and 1980 (sometimes called the shadow boom). They're now between 22 and 37, and they're largely settled into housing and families and jobs for the next 20 years or so. They, too, are sure to be indirectly affected by the other two boom generations, as we all try to sort out our housing, family, employment, and commuting decisions. This group is also the largest source of the youngest school students.Baby boomers have three choices when they retire: stay in their current homes, move locally, or leave the area.
And they may move several times after age 65. Each choice has consequences for local planning. If the boomers stay home in large numbers, most likely in the suburbs, their communities will age along with them. In some areas, local housing will continue to be assessed at lower than market values because assessed values are based on out-of-date sales prices.
Meanwhile, the echo boomers have their own needs, particularly schools. Nationally, elementary and high school enrollments are expected to increase slowly, to 53.4 million in 2005, and then decrease slightly before stabilizing at or near the end of the decade. College enrollment is expected to rise steadily for the next few years, reaching 17.7 million in 2011 (Gruber ; David 2001).
