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The many shades of gray (cont.) Changing a youth bias Browdie, who is also president of the American Society on Aging, said gerontologists consider age 75 much more of a marker for old age now than 65, because so many people at 65 can continue the activities they’ve adopted throughout adulthood. The use of 65 as any kind of benchmark for "old age" originated 117 years ago with German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. He introduced pensions for his citizenry above that age, at a time when few of them were fortunate enough to live that long. Now that so many people stay healthy longer, it’s time for society to acknowledge what they offer instead of assuming they’re dependent, said Dr. Paul David Nussbaum, director of aging research for Lutheran Affiliated Services. "It’s an agist society . . . youth-driven, microwave-driven, Big Mac-driven," Nussbaum said, "but the fact of the matter is older adults don’t need us — we need older adults. When my wife and I want to go out, the first one we call for baby-sitting is my mother." Mothers get such calls far more than fathers, and not just because they’re better at minding the young ones. There are simply more women around in old age, and they’re more active than their male counterparts in virtually every part of society but the workforce, as any visit to a church, senior center or supermarket will attest. Women’s greater life expectancy means they outnumber men by 3-to-2 in the 65-plus age group, and by 5-to-2 in the 85-plus group. The bad news for elderly women is they are generally poorer than men. Their work histories earn them less in Social Security benefits, and widowhood often leaves them to support a household on one income instead of two. Of the 2.3 million elderly poor who lived alone in 1992, 2 million were women. Blacks’ status can be even worse in their so-called golden years. They live six years less than whites, on average, and they endure more health problems and poverty. Elderly blacks’ poverty rate was 26 percent in 1997. "We find a strong correlation between health and wealth. The people who are the healthiest are also the wealthiest … and the people who tend to be poor and have poor health also tend to have less education," whatever their race, said Robert J. Willis, a University of Michigan economics professor leading an ongoing study of the elderly for the federal government. They’re survivors Interviews with a mixture of the region’s elderly — different ages, genders, races, incomes and professional backgrounds — found most are more contented than troubled, despite any concerns they have about health or income. Mary Martin, 80, a Blawnox widow who supplements her retirement income with financial support from her children, intends to keep living on her own, around her Pittsburgh roots, even though a son and daughter living in the Sun Belt want her to move closer to them. She "paces" herself more than she used to because of her age, rarely venturing out of her apartment at night, but does little complaining. "I was born during the First World War, I was raised during the Depression, and I went through the Second World War, and things were tough," said the retired bookkeeper and senior center coordinator. "You learned how to deal with things, and I’m happy the way things are today. I’m comfortable." Like Martin, most elderly are loath to leave the Pittsburgh area, even if they are bedeviled by such common local problems as old housing that’s hard to maintain, or difficult treks up and down hills for groceries in the middle of winter. Pittsburghers are known for staying in place: Among major metropolitan areas in the United States, this region has the highest percentage of its population that has resided in the same home for 30 years. Family, ethnic and community ties bind older adults to this area more than in cities with younger, more mobile populations, various specialists on elderly issues suggest. That’s good for the elderly themselves, who can use those ties for help when needed, but it creates a potential problem for those they have to lean on, whether it’s family members or the government. "Where the rubber meets the road is really on the social services," said Robert Friedland, executive director of the National Academy on an Aging Society. "If they’ve never left the area, they’re going to age in place, and they’re going to be there with houses falling down around them and health and social needs rising." Certainly, that’s already true locally for some individuals. The question is just how widespread such problems will become as the old-old population multiplies to numbers far beyond anything seen so far. The 85-plus population will keep growing at a far faster rate than the workforce that helps support them with tax dollars or the Lottery Fund revenues that assist the elderly in Pennsylvania. The old-old also are increasing at a faster rate than the 50-64 age group, which provides the younger family members who are supposed to help care for frail parents.In many ways, it’s an entirely new social problem. "There is no historical precedent for the experience of most middle-aged and young-old persons having living parents," the U.S. Census Bureau noted in a 1996 document. "In 1950, relatively few people had to worry about caring for the frail elderly. The parent support ratio tripled from 1950 to 1993 and will likely triple again over the next six decades." Such trends pose difficulties for some families, even while others benefit from the ability of older generations to hand down wisdom and assets. Striking a balance between how to help the elderly but also benefit from their contributions is one of the biggest challenges facing the region’s leaders, who sometimes seem much more preoccupied with recapturing the area’s youth. The one certainty is that the older population’s longevity is increasingly evident to their families, to doctors, to merchants, to social service providers and others, and the ripples of their longer-lasting presence will only continue to broaden into the new millennium.
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