Elderly man uses laptop
When Older Americans Month (May) was established in 1963, only 17 million Americans had celebrated their sixty fifth birthdayTh Birthday. Today, over 60 million of us can claim the excellence of being 65 or older. However, over 22 million older adults live alone and almost 30% of them did no children or other family support as they get older. This is a category best generally known as “Solo Agers.”
Starting this 12 months (2024), on May 15, Solo Agers can have their very own day, right in the midst of Older Americans Month. SAVvy day (Solo Agers Visibility Day) will recognize their status, raise awareness of their numbers and educate others on how they will support the Solo Agers amongst their family and friends.
The How and Why of Solo Aging
Gone in the newborn boom generation 18 percent of girls didn’t give birth to children. This number is nearly double that of all previous generations. If you are wondering why the newborn boom generation’s childlessness rate has doubled, take into consideration what happened within the late ’60s and early ’70s: Boomer women were the primary within the U.S. to have access to reliable childbirth Contraception (the pill) was introduced to the general public in 1964. And for the primary time in history that they had it the power to decide on profession over motherhood without being seen as an outcast.
In the Nineteen Seventies, the educational and skilled doors that had previously excluded women from entry opened wide: medicine, engineering, law, architecture, aviation and plenty of more. Millions of female baby boomers took advantage of the opportunities available. With the reduction in social pressure to begin a family got here the liberty to stay single—or to divorce if the wedding didn’t work out. Beginning in these many years, many Boomer women selected careers and freedom over marriage and family.
Given the shortage of nursing staff
Another factor to contemplate is the sheer size of the newborn boom cohort. As the Wall Street Journal reported in 2018 Article, “America is running out of family caregivers just when we need them most,” aging baby boomers will face a shortage of members of the family. The ratio of nursing staff to those in need of care is declining. This decline in numbers is predicted to proceed over the subsequent 40 years and can eventually result in an unprecedented need for senior housing and care. Solo agers represent a big percentage of those that will need it.
Solo agers have unique challenges and concerns. Anyone who has cared for an aging parent within the last months or years of their life knows that it might be a full-time job. For most solo agers, determining how and where this sort of care will come from of their final days is a frightening task.
Family diaspora
A significant and comparatively recent change within the makeup of American society is what I call the “family diaspora.” In previous generations, most kids grew up and stayed in the identical city (or not less than the identical state) as their parents. They could have gone to school, but they got here home and settled somewhere near their family, friends, and every thing that they had known growing up. Today, adult children are leaving home in quest of job opportunities, a unique lifestyle, and/or an area where they will afford to live comfortably and construct a nest egg. This is particularly true for college-educated young adults who could have met and worked with someone from one other a part of the country or world. Parents of kids who live distant or are estranged from their offspring often feel like solo agers, though they’ve children.
Avoid loneliness and isolation
Those who’re married or living with a partner generally develop into more depending on one another as they age, and when a partner dies, loneliness and isolation can increase dramatically. For safety and well-being reasons, solo agers must plan for a time when they could not have the option to get within the automobile and drive to a friend’s house or attend their church service. There isn’t any approach to know which of the solo agers will live long enough to risk isolation and loneliness and who is not going to. Therefore, planning for solo aging is a worthwhile pursuit for anyone who matches this profile.
As Solo Aging becomes more widely known, planning help might be obtained from a lot of organizations across the country which are doing similar work to SAVvy Day organizer. Additionally, many financial planners offer special programs for solo agers. Additionally, senior centers, regional agencies on aging, and county agencies on aging can provide advice and resources.
