Who Qualifies as 'Old'?

Defining Age:
- One can join the American Association of Retired Persons at age 50.
- Individuals over 55 qualify for senior discounts.
- Full social security benefits are available at age 65-67, depending on the year of birth.
- Researchers commonly use age 65 as the threshold for defining older Americans.
- Most people older than 65 report not feeling old.
- Only 1/3 of individuals aged 75 and older say they feel old.

Demographic Aging Trends:
- In the early 1900s, high fertility and mortality rates meant each age group was smaller than the one above it, creating a demographic structure resembling a triangle, also referred to as a “population pyramid.”
- Over the 20th century, as mortality rates drastically declined, Americans began living longer, altering age distribution.
- In the 21st century, the American age distribution resembles a rectangle rather than a triangle.
- In 2018, there were 93,000 Americans aged 100 and older.

Poverty Rates Among Older Americans:
- The U.S. poverty rate for average Americans aged 65 and older is 8.9%. This is 5% lower than the poverty rate for those aged 18–64 and 38% lower than the rate for children.
- When adjusted for increased medical expenses associated with older age and geographical differences in cost of living, the poverty rate rises to 13.6%.
- The introduction of Medicare in the 1960s significantly helped reduce poverty levels among the oldest Americans.
- A growing number of workers are not covered by employer or union pensions, and declining wages complicate retirement savings. Social Security payments may not keep pace with increasing demands.

Marriage Trends:
- Marriage remains the most common relationship type for older Americans.
- An increase in cohabitation is noted among this age group, driven by financial pressures.
Living Apart Together (LAT):
- Defined as couples in committed, long-term relationships who choose not to share a household.

Role of Grandparents:
- Grandparenting is considered an intergenerational role that many occupy for a significant portion of their lives, becoming a distinct phase in the life course.
- Grandparents can be classified into three roles:
- Remote (29%)
- Companionate (55%)
- Involved (16%)

Companionate Grandparents:
- Most common type in the U.S., characterized by sharing time with grandchildren, offering guidance and advice, and avoiding discipline and financial responsibility associated with parenting.

Among American grandparents living within driving distance of their grandchildren, 50% serve as caregivers.
Parents often prefer grandparent childcare as they consider it more trustworthy and nurturing compared to formal childcare settings.
Grandparents frequently adjust their work schedules, reduce leisure time, and provide financial assistance to their children in lieu of saving for retirement.
In 2019, 10% of American children lived in multigenerational households with their grandparents.
There is a rise in co-residential childcare where grandparents live with grandchildren for demographic and economic reasons.
In skipped generation households (where grandparents and grandchildren live together without a parent), grandparents often take on primary childcare responsibilities.

Intergenerational Solidarity:
- Defined as the sense of cohesion among family members of differing generations.
- There are high levels of intergenerational solidarity between adult children and their parents, with 80% of adults feeling close to their parents.
- One in five adults speaks to their mother daily, with the strongest intergenerational relationships typically being between mothers and daughters.
- In 2016, the median distance adults lived from their mothers was 18 miles.
Intergenerational Ambivalence:
- The term refers to the combination of positive and negative feelings that characterize many intergenerational relationships.

Merril Silverstein and Vern Bangston (1997):
- Developed a typology of intergenerational relations reflecting the complexity of intersecting dimensions of solidarity, including:
- Tight-knit relations: High levels of solidarity.
- Sociable relations: Adult children living close to parents and maintaining frequent contact.
- Obligatory relations: Close living and frequent contact with parents but lacking emotional closeness or value consensus.
- Intimate but distant relations: Emotional closeness and value consensus without geographical proximity.
- Detached relations: Adult children do not engage with their parents.

Functional Solidarity:
- Involves the exchange of instrumental help and financial support across generations.
Instrumental Exchanges:
- Include help with childcare, errands, housework, household repairs, and personal care.
- Typically, instrumental and financial help flow down generations from parents to children.
- Adult children tend to receive more assistance from their parents when they are young, unmarried, or facing mental or physical health challenges.
- Approximately 23% of middle-aged adults provide care for older parents or family members.

Refers to middle-aged adults who are responsible for caring for both their children and older family members.
The lack of public caregiving support, subsidized childcare, living wages, guaranteed parental leave, adequate pensions, and residential care for older adults increases pressure on these individuals to find individual solutions to collective structural challenges.

Reality of Unpaid Caregiving:
- Caregiving is often described as requiring significant personal sacrifice.
- Example quotes:
- Bradley Cooper described caregiving as “traumatic,” emphasizing the heroism of caregivers.
- Brown-Ekeogu, a caregiver for her husband, noted the financial burden of caregiving: “Now I’m doing total care – helping him to walk, cleaning him, bathing him… It took everything we had left. My credit card went from $2k to over $30k.”
- Matt Cauli, caregiver for their wife, stated, “I had to quit my job… They expected things to go back to normal, but for me, it’s not going back to normal.”

Hospice Limitations:
- Problems such as inadequate speed of medical decline can result in loss of assistance: “He’s not deteriorating fast enough… All the assistance that was in place for him was gonna be gone.”
Lack of Universal Paid Leave:
- FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act) ensures job security but does not provide pay.
Medicaid Gaps:
- To qualify for Medicaid assistance, individuals may have to sacrifice home ownership: “In order to get Kanlaya on Medicaid, I had to take her name off the mortgage.”