We Are Not Alone

A recent AARP study ("The Aging of the Baby Boom and the Growing Care Gap", http://www.aarp.org/home-family/caregiving/info-08-2013/the-aging-of-the-baby-boom-and-the-growing-care-gap-AARP-ppi-ltc.html) indicates a steep decline in the number of family health care givers per number of those requiring care that is facing the boomer generation.  In 2010 there were more than seven potential care givers for every one boomer at age 80 (an age where we are likely to need some help).  The study projects that by 2030 that ration will drop to four to one, and by 2050 it will drop further, to less than three to one.

Let me restate that more precisely:  from >7:1 to 4:1, then to <3:1.  The potential audience for this blog just grew exponentially.

So the discussion we are having here about strategies for becoming elders without the help of youngers may be useful for more than just the population of old people without children.

The reason for this decline may be a statistical anomaly.  In the period from 1990 to to 2010 the boomers themselves were in the prime care-giving age group.  Thus the ratio actually went up from 6.6 to 7.2.  Before the boomer bulge the ration was likely lower.  But now, as we eld, we potential care givers are leaving that category and entering the care needer category.  Thus the steep decline in the ratio.  As we boomers pass from Elders to Fond Memories in the years after 2050, the ration will likely once again change for the better.

But the numbers are a stark reminder that there are a lot of us, and not so many of them to take care of us.  This, I would think, applies to paid as well as family care givers.  Care availability may become a relatively scarce commodity.

Michael