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Aging, Generational Continuity, and Filial Support
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13865 |
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MODERN THOUGHT
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12 / 1988 |
5,023 Words |
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Abraham Monk
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Aging is one of the salient themes of our time. It is gaining our attention both by the increase in life expectancy—that is, by the fact that people are living longer—and by the increasing proportion of older people as part of the total population.
Life expectancy, which in 1900 was 46.4 years for white males and 49.0 for females, rose to 69.9 and 77.5 in 1980 for white men and women, respectively. It will continue inching up—to over 80 by the year 2000.
As we keep adding years to life we also augment the number of living generations in family lineages. From the triad of grandparents, parents, and children we now find that four-and even five-generation families with two "older" generations—a younger one in its 60s and its octogenarian parents, are no longer a rarity. This increased longevity, coupled with a decline in birth rates, is changing the age profile of American society. In the year 1900 the 65-and-older age group were only 4 percent of all Americans, the almost imperceptible tip of the population pyramid. Demographic projections indicate that this group will almost quadruple by the year 2000, reaching the 15-percent mark of the population, or one in every six Americans.
The demographic expansion of the aged is primarily occurring in technologically advanced societies. Some, like the United States, are experiencing relentless economic growth while contracting unprecedented fiscal deficits. There is a lingering fear that the addition of more living generations will compound these economic woes. Older nonworking persons require costly health and social service supports. When resources are stretched to the limit, policymakers end up with the dilemma of having to choose whether to attend to the needs of their frail and dependent elders or to create instead a better start in life for the young.
Accusations that the old siphon away the precious assets needed by younger, succeeding generations are voiced quite frequently. Henry Fairlie recently complied a litany of such apocalyptic invectives. "Something is wrong," he writes in the New Republic, "with a society that is willing to drain itself to foster such an unproductive section of its population." He finds it unjustifiable that the elderly's standard of living has improved faster than that of younger people, and he resents that they accumulate so many benefits—Medicare, Social Security, special tax privileges and so forth—without challenge. Fairlie also regards these benefits as too generous and cannot reconcile himself to the idea that the proportion of elderly living below the poverty line is lower than that of the children's cohort (14 versus 20 percent).
Instead of proposing an improvement in the condition of the young, though, Fairlie's solution is that the aged should sacrifice themselves for those who hold more promise of productivity. At times he seems to imply the need for a more expeditious "final solution." "If one needs a psychiatrist by the time one is 65," Fairlie concludes, "one should take the quick way out—make a swan dive from the high bridge to the tarmac, and go meet the Great Therapist in the Sky."
The 'Intergenerational Inequity' Thesis
Fairlie's arguments are not original. They are just some of the most recent statements of the
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