The Coming Growth of Older Households
And the need for elder care
As I’ve commented before, demographers have largely ignored the coming explosion in the number of Americans aged 85 and older. The annual Profile of Older Americans published by the Administration on Aging, for instance, focuses on the 65 and over population, scarcely mentioning those 85 and over.
The rapid growth of the 65 and over population that we are currently experiencing is important in many ways, including the so-called dependency ratio between the working and non-working population and the future solvency of the Social Security System. But it fails to anticipate the coming elder care need.
Since most people between the ages of 64 and 84 are perfectly able to take care of themselves, focusing on this cohort tells us little about future demand for home care workers, nursing homes and assisted living facilities. That demand will grow dramatically starting in about 10 years when the oldest baby boomers begin reaching their late eighties.
Projected Growth in Households
Fortunately, some researchers are beginning to take notice. A projection of household growth between now and 2045 just published by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University concludes that the “aging of the baby boomer generation will drive up the number of households headed by a person aged 80 or over by nearly 60 percent by 2035 and lead this group to nearly double in size by 2045. . . . It will also increase demand for accessibility in the housing stock to accommodate the needs of older householders more likely to have a disability.”
This chart included in the report demonstrates this growth better than any words can.
According to the report, 92 percent of net household growth between now and 2035 will be of adults aged 65 and older with most of that growth attributable to “households headed by people age 80 and over, as members of the baby boom generation begin to turn 80 after 2025. The number of households age 80 and over is projected to grow by 5.5 million between 2025 and 2035, from 9.6 million households to 15.1 million; by 2045, the total will rise to 19.2 million.”
Changing Household Characteristics
The report highlights other trends related to the growth of the number of older households. It will mean relatively fewer households with children and married couples as the proportion of households headed by older adults and those who are widowed or divorced grows. And we can expect the number of multigenerational households to grow from about 4.8 million today to 7.5 million in 2045. This is true because older seniors will need the care of family members and widowed seniors will not want to live alone. But it also reflects the change demographics of the U.S. population since Hispanic families are more likely to live in multigenerational households than are white families.
After 2045, of course, some of these trends should begin to reverse since by then the oldest surviving baby boomers will pushing a century of life. By 2065, even the youngest baby boomers will be over 100, but that four decades from now. We have to get through the coming elder care crisis first.