Healthy Aging in North Carolina

The “longevity revolution” is here. Regardless of whether any North Carolinians born today will live to the 120 to 150 years projected by Dr. Robert Butler at the International Longevity Center, North Carolina’s current older population is nevertheless growing in size and in age. By 2030, North Carolina’s older adult population (aged 65 and older) will more than double to over 2 million and the very old population (aged 85 and older) will increase 150% to about 250,000. Life expectancy, or the number of years the average person can expect to live, has been increasing, especially at older ages. For example, in 1990 an individual aged 75 could expect to live another 10.9 years, but in 2005 that projection grew to another 12 years. But are those added years healthy years? What can be done to ensure that North Carolinians age healthily

The Making of the Senior Sandwich

Financial stability is important at all stages of life, but for older adults who may have fewer earnings options, it’s essential. While retirement planning and saving should begin early, young families frequently postpone it for other household consumption needs. They decide to wait to save for retirement until middle age when they will be closer to retiring and assume family obligations will decrease. However, recent trends show that the family’s changing age structure is directly influencing the timing of and saving for retirement. There has been a relatively new phenomenon of older adults in their late 50s, 60s, and even 70s with aging parents who continue to have obligations to their own children—the Senior Sandwich

Family Aging and the Practice of Elder Law: A Financial Gerontology Perspective

Financial Gerontology is an emerging field that brings applied social gerontological education to financial services professionals. These practitioners are already well educated in their primary fields, but are seeking to add aging and gerontology to their knowledge to better understand and serve a mature or "aging" clientele. Thus, Financial Gerontology parallels the legal specialization of Elder Law. Practitioners first receive education and accreditation in the fundamentals, and then go further to acquire specialized knowledge and training. It is in this context that several propositions from applied research and education in Financial Gerontology are likely to be of value to Elder Law specialists

Couples’ Retirement Timing in the United States in the 1990s: The Impact of Market and Family Role Demands on Joint Work Exits

The timing of retirement among married couples is a complex process. As women remain attached to the labor market for longer periods of their lives and as they bring market resources such as pensions and health insurance to the couple’s retirement decision, they introduce new contingencies to the process and variability in job exits. Couples are most likely to coordinate their retirement timing to be as simultaneous as possible. However, the second most likely pattern is for husbands to precede their wives into retirement. This study used the Mature Women sample of the National Longitudinal Surveys between 1989 and 1997 to track the effects of family, pension, health insurance, and changes in spousal health statuses on joint and sequential retirement patterns. Proportional hazards models reveal that joint retirement is most likely among couples in which wives reach the ages of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare and among couples who have defined benefit plans. Alternatively, wives’ health insurance coverage from their own employment tends to result in their delayed retirements following their husbands’. Husbands’ health limitations and caregiving needs also delay their wives’ retirement, while wives’ health limitations are more likely to result in joint retirement

The Pension Mix for Women in Middle and Late Life: More Evidence of the Changing Employment Relationship

The effects of life-course, employment and labor market characteristics on the probability of pension participation and on type of pension coverage are estimated for two cohorts of working women in middle and late life, respectively. The National Longitudinal Surveys of Mature and Young Women are used to differentiate the relative importance of life course and diverse structural factors on worker pension participation and employer coverage patterns. The defined contribution plan is argued to be an indicator of the changing employment relationship which is relieving employers of pension liability and increasing workers' responsibilities for retirement saving. Probit regressions are used to estimate the relative risks for nonparticipation in any pension among these working women. Multinominal logistic models, controlling for selectivity, estimate cohort processes in workers' access to employer-provided pension types. The results reveal the relative importance for middle-aged and older women of life course and structural variables that reflect life stage and changing employment relationships. Younger cohorts appear to be relatively more vulnerable to the changing employment contract given their greater dependence on defined contribution plans and the conflict between family and market contingencies

Kin Support and Women’s Labor Force Experiences in Midlife

Women in midlife continue to assume the roles of "caregiver" and "mother" in contemporary American society (Hagemann-White, 1984). These traditional roles often clash with new roles arising from ongoing demographic change, especially the increase in educational attainment and the rise in labor force participation. Public policy designed to encourage the care and assistance of kin as a familial obligation thus has the potential to significantly affect midlife women’s labor force experiences and strain familial relationships

Gender Differences in Kin Contact and Reliance

Intergenerational research has focused on contact of parent and adult children in the United States and their reliance on one another. But research has not addressed how these intergenerational relationships in the United State compare to those in other developed countries. In this research we compare intergenerational contact and kin reliance of seven urban industrialized countries using the International Social Survey Program. We also examine gender differences in the parent-child dyad on the likelihood of contact and support. We find country differences on visiting and contact between parents and children when compared to the United States. Aging parents in Australia and Hungary are more willing to rely on kin. Adult children visit parents more in Hungary and Italy and less in Australia. In all countries established gender role expectations for helping kin hold with sons having less contact with parents. Father rely on sons, sons on fathers, mothers on daughters and daughters on mothers. Reliance on kin is consistently correlated with frequency of personal contact

Boomerang Burdens: Back to the Nest

Many Americans are having difficulty saving money. But baby boomers, who are often perceived as being self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, and self-indulgent, may actually have been too generous to their families at the expense of ignoring their own retirement interests. Personal savings increased through the mid-1980s but began to decline in the era of the great bull market in U.S. equities and soaring housing values. As savings decreased, housing values have increased. Some conclude that the home has become the piggy bank of the future. Home ownership as a form of personal savings provides solvency only when the home equity remains. While older retired adults may find home ownership a reassuring component of their retirement portfolio, many individuals who are not yet retired have been using home equity to make ends meet. Lines of credit based on home equity are being used to pay for healthcare or children’s college expenses. The result for many is a decline not only in personal and retirement savings but also in home equity

Factors Influencing Parental Caregiving by Adult Women: Variations by Care Intensity and Duration

This article examines a variety of demographic and structural characteristics that influence die provision of care to elderly parents by adult daughters. In particular, variations in these characteristics by the duration and intensity of care provision are examined. Age, education, and marital slams are found to be the most important individual characteristics influencing the provision of care. Parental age, the number of living parents, and the proximity of parents and daughters are also important. However, when caregivers are examined by the duration and intensity of their care, only parental age is consistently related to care. Geographic proximity does not appear significant for women who are providing short, intense periods of care, implying that "crisis" care is undertaken by women despite their distance from parents. This research highlights the importance of distinguishing among different types of caregiving