America's Untapped Resource

By Marc Freedman, Civic Ventures

In 1900, the average American could expect to live to the age of 47.

Today, the figure is 76, with continuing increases anticipated in the new century.

The addition of three decades to the lifespan in less than a hundred years – an increase in longevity greater than the total change over the previous 5,000 years – constitutes one of the most remarkable gifts of the 20th century.

Together with the impending retirement of more than 76 million baby boomers, the increase in life expectancy will transform America over the coming generation into a much older society. By 2050, between a fifth and a quarter of the society will be over the age of 65. To appreciate the significance of this change it is necessary only to consider that the over-65 population in Florida today is a mere 18 percent.

In recent years, awareness of the impending demographic revolution has grown considerably and brought with it a wave of concerns about the societal consequences. Interpretation of the graying of America has been seized primarily by two groups. Physicians, cornering one part of the debate, have been warning us to brace for an exponential increase in dependency, disease, and dementia as the oldest-old become the fastest growing group in society. They talk bluntly about the "failure of success," the unanticipated downside to our ability to prolong life.

Where the doctors locate decay, economists spy greed. Investment banker and former Nixon Commerce Secretary Pete Peterson warns we can ill afford a leisure class comprised of a quarter of the population. Even the liberal economist Lester Thurow describes the elderly as a "new revolutionary class" bent on bringing down the social welfare state and compromising the well-being of future generations. And Thurow does not confine himself to prospective inequities. In particular, he highlights a small town in Michigan where local elders recently forced schools to shut down prematurely so that public funds might be diverted to better fulfilling their snow removal needs.

Is Demography Destiny?

While there can be no denying the enormous impact of the aging society, the narrow terms of the current debate are blinding us to the possibilities presented by the massive increase in America's older population. Demography may be destiny, but the specific nature of that destiny is hardly predetermined. While there can be no denying the need for adjustments in Social Security and Medicare, the age boom may be every bit as much an opportunity to be seized as a crisis to be solved – provided we learn how to tap the time, talent, and civic potential of the group that is our country's only increasing natural resource.

America now possesses not only the largest and fastest-growing population of older adults in our history – but the healthiest, most vigorous, and best educated. Only 5 percent of seniors reside in nursing homes, and the vast majority experience no disability whatsoever. In fact, a recent study by Duke University's Center for Demographic Studies shows a 15 percent drop in disability over the past 12 years. Just as important, older Americans possess what the middle generation lacks: time.

First, elders have time to care. Retirement frees up 25 hours a week for men and 18 hours for women. The prevalence of early retirement and longer life means that many Americans now at work will spend a third or more of their adult life in retirement.

Second, seniors have more time lived. They have practical knowledge, and in some cases wisdom, gained from experience. They may well be our greatest repository of the social capital that many fear is drying up.

Third, seniors' time left to live may give them special reason to become involved in civic and voluntary work that constitutes their legacy to others. According to the late psychologist Erik Erikson, the hallmark of successful late-life development can be encapsulated in the understanding, "I am what survives of me."

In addition, a number of recent studies suggest that more older adults may be willing to serve as a matter of self-interest. Studies following people over their lives link community engagement to prolonged physical and mental health in old age.

Not a Person to Waste

So one might expect to see much clamoring to engage elders in service to communities, but the opposite is true. Most studies show that volunteering falls off sharply after retirement. Although their level of engagement has increased substantially since the early 1960s, older Americans still serve less than any other age group.

How do older Americans spend their time? They watch more television than any other group does – a staggering half of all elders' free time. Housework is the next major activity absorbing time liberated in later life. It is no surprise that a majority of older respondents to a recent Louis Harris poll lament the loss of usefulness after retirement.

In and of itself, this loss of human potential would be cause for concern. But the stakes extend beyond personal fulfillment. We simply can't afford it as a society, at a juncture when, as the late Gray Panther founder Maggie Kuhn observed, "we don't have a single person to waste."

Today, most Americans in the middle-generation face an overwhelming shortage of time, struggling to work long hours and raise children. Most significantly, this time-famine afflicts women, long the bastions of civic life in this country. For more than a century, through a wide array of unpaid, undervalued, often unnoticed tasks, middle-aged women have served as the glue in American communities. But today 61.7 percent of mothers with preschoolers (and half of all mothers with infants) are working at paid jobs, up from 19 percent in 1960. And two-thirds of employed mothers work full-time.

When work, childrearing, and household chores are combined, American women work 15 hours more each week than men. It is no wonder PTA membership has plummeted since the 1960s, and that volunteering overall has declined a full five points since the end of the last decade.

A Solution Waiting to Happen

America's burgeoning older population could come to succeed middle-aged women as the backbone of civic life in this country – helping to revitalize our communities and rectify the great disparity in available time that has emerged between the generations – provided we can develop compelling new opportunities enabling older Americans to make a genuine contribution while benefiting themselves in the process.

At present, few such opportunities exist. While the graying of America is dramatically altering the social landscape, we have yet to develop the institutions appropriate to these new demographic realities. To date, our most profound institutional invention concerning the aging society is probably the retirement community, the "Sun Cities" that have for several decades made billions for private developers while luring retirees to the desert. But what about those older Americans who would rather remain a vital part of their communities? In general, we've made little headway in reengaging these individuals, despite the reality that our neighborhoods can ill afford to lose the social capital they possess.

However, there is emerging evidence that the reigning conception of retirement may be breaking down. Quietly, oftentimes out of inescapable need, older Americans are becoming an increasing presence in American family life. Today, grandparents are raising 3.4 million children, while an additional six million families rely on them to provide primary child care – both dramatic increases over the recent past.

Outside the family, intriguing developments are also underway. We've seen the emergence, for example, of a new group of role models who are demonstrating that later life can be a time of continued growth, discovery, and contribution. John Glenn's return to space at the age of 75 is one of the most visible examples of this phenomenon. When the former Senator landed, he told reporters: "Just because you're up in years some doesn't mean you don't have hopes and dreams and aspirations just as much as younger people do." Probably the preeminent example of a role model for a new retirement is former President Jimmy Carter, whose own third age has involved building houses through Habitat for Humanity, serving as an international ambassador for peace, bringing the haves and have-nots of Atlanta together to plan the city's future, climbing the Himalayas, and teaching Sunday School, in addition to writing about all of these activities, most recently in the best-seller The Virtues of Aging.

Furthermore, at the ground level, a new group of social entrepreneurs – many of whom are retirees themselves – are taking matters into their own hands, creating a set of new service institutions that offer a glimpse of future possibilities. One example is Bill Schwartz, a retired physician and medical school professor who created a free health clinic for the working poor in San Mateo, Calif. The Samaritan House Medical Clinic is staffed chiefly by retired doctors, dentists, nurses, and pharmacists. The clinic sees thousands of patients every year, supplying them with quality care they could not access anywhere else, while providing the retired volunteers the chance to rediscover, in the words of one, "the joy of medicine."

Another illustration of the growing ferment is the Experience Corps® initiative, created in 1995 by Civic Ventures' founder Marc Freedman in collaboration with former HEW Secretary John Gardner, and two partner organizations, The Corporation for National Service and Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The Experience Corps® began as an attempt to mobilize neighborhood retirees around urban elementary schools and the children who attend them. The initial aim has been to help ease the human resource crisis in American education, assisting inner-city schools to become more caring and personal places, strengthening their academic achievement, and bolstering ties between these institutions and their surrounding neighborhoods. The Experience Corps® was adapted to work in the after-school hours as well, through groups such as the YMCA, the Beacon Centers, and Boys and Girls Clubs.

An underlying goal of Experience Corps® has been to rebuild the constituency for children and public schools among the retiree population. This may sound utopian, but in the early 1980s, Miami began actively recruiting elder school volunteers and built a corps 2,500 strong. These individuals played a critical role in passing an important school bond issue. In March 1988, 72 percent of older adults voted for the bond – a remarkable level of support, considering the history of such bond issues and the fact that many of the elderly in Miami have grandchildren elsewhere.

The Gift of Age

The retirement of 76 million baby boomers will almost certainly force redefinition of what it means to grow older in this country. The real issue is who will benefit from the addition of an entirely new lifestage, one equaling the middle years in duration. (Fitzgerald's remark that there are no second acts in American lives clearly has become obsolete.) Will this development serve mostly to enrich the leisure industry and send us reeling toward the kind of intergenerational conflict many are now predicting? Or might it produce a civic windfall for American communities?

The outcome will depend in large part on the institutions we create to accompany the aging society, and on the public policies that support these new creations. If we build it, a raft of surveys showing a deep hunger on the part of older Americans to play a more significant role in society strongly suggests, they will come.

In the end, the value of expanding opportunities for these individuals to continue to contribute may extend well beyond the more efficient matching of untapped resources and unmet needs. In the words of William James, "The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast us." There could be no more compelling statement about why older Americans require precisely the engagement that our communities need of them.