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"The Future of Family and Tribe," a seminar of CLALs Jewish Public Forum held January 28-29, 2002 in New York City, brought together a dozen leading thinkers on gender, gay rights, adoption, reproductive law, bioethics, and aging. eCLAL is publishing a series of articles based on participants contributions to the seminar. To view other essays from "The Future of Family and Tribe" seminar, click here. This seminar was part of Exploring the Jewish Futures: A Multidimensional Project On the Future of Religion,Ethnicity and Civic Engagement. For more information about the project, click here.
Dan
Reingold participated in "The Future of Family and Tribe" seminar. He is the
Executive Vice President of The Hebrew Home for the Aged at Riverdale in the Bronx. Mr.
Reingold serves on the board of directors of the Greater New York Hospital Association and
the Council of Senior Centers and Services of New York City. He holds appointments on the
Governors Managed Long Term Care Advisory Council, and the Advisory committee of the
Aging Law and Policy Program of Albany Law School. His contribution to the JPF Seminar
follows below. How Will Baby Boomers Age? By Dan
Reingold
Eighty million
Americans were born between 1946 and 1964. This
constitutes the largest generation in American history, and stands in stark contrast to
generations before and after. Baby Boomers
have affected every system, every institution, every aspect of life. The creation of the diaper service, the suburbs
and shopping malls, the explosion of school construction in the 1950s and 60s, the
enormous growth in the number and size of colleges and universities, and the changes in
political structure and parties are only some of the changes this generation has left in
its wake. And as this
generation ages, it will have profound effects on how we think about old age, how we think
about family relationships and how we construct services for the elderly population. As I look at the future of our facility, the
Hebrew Home for the Aged of Riverdale, these are the things I am thinking about. The elders of
today, who will be entering the 65 plus cohort in the first decade of the 21st
century, married earlier than their own parents and earlier than their Baby Boomer
children. They also had more children than
did the prior or the succeeding generations and had them in a shorter period of time. Baby Boomers, with
their delayed marriages and smaller families, thus tend to be more like their grandparents
than like their parents. The proportion of never-married is higher among Baby Boomers than
among prior generations. The divorce and
re-marriage rate began its upward climb with the parents of Baby Boomers, but the
proportion of divorce is much higher among Baby Boomers and the re-marriage rate is much
lower. Baby Boomers will be more apt to enter old age without spouses, either as
never-marrieds, divorced, separated or as widows. There
will be more and more childless adults and parents of one child. There will be more single parents, more
stepchildren and blended families, some with his, hers and
ours. Given the delay in marriage
and childbearing, the generation span for many Baby Boomers will be longer than for the
previous generation. That is, we will see more parents in their 70s who have children in
their 30s and early 40s still in their child-bearing and child-rearing years. This is in contrast to a prior generation, where
an 85 year olds children would have been in their sixties, grandchildren in their
30s and 40s and great-grandchildren in middle or high school. As we think about
the centrality of spouses in particular, but also about children, siblings, cousins,
nephews and nieces in the lives of older people, and as sources of company, support and
help, we must take into account differences in the family structure of Baby Boomers. Older people today, and for the next decade, are
more likely to be married, to have three or more children and to have only one sibling. When the current generation of elders (those who
are 70+) reaches their eighties, their children will have completed their child-rearing
years and will likely have three or even four descendent generations. Baby Boomers, in
contrast, will have a nice supply of siblings, of course, and many will celebrate their 65th
birthdays with their own parents, more likely their mothers, in attendance. Baby Boomers are more likely to enter old age
without a spouse, with one or no children. Family relationships and definitions of
responsibility will be complicated by divorce among Baby Boomers themselves, the
divorces of their children, or even the divorces of their parents. More Baby Boomers
than before will enter later years as partners in long-term and stable homosexual and
lesbian relationships, with responsibilities and expectations clearly defined, and
sometimes with adult children as members of the kinship group. Fewer Baby Boomers will have spent long years in
the closet, and fewer will be estranged from members of their families of orientation. Estrangement in the current older generation
reflected the inability of parents and siblings to accept the social and sexual
orientation of their gay or lesbian relatives, or the unwillingness of gays and lesbians
to face family disapproval by telling their parents or siblings about their sexual
orientation. The other major
difference, of course, is that the Baby Boomers will be economically stronger than the
preceding generation. This is primarily because there are many more women who have
careers, while their parents did not. There
will be two pension checks and two social security checks.
It will be less likely that a woman who survives her husband will live off a
survivor benefit. Instead, a widow will live
off a survivor benefit plus her own pension and social security. There will also be subtle consequences down
the road for Baby Boomers regarding the stress-related effects of working. Women who had careers will be just like men in
terms of chronic conditions usually associated with stress.
This will require that we formulate a very different approach. In addition,
there will be a huge transfer of wealth when the current elderly population dies a
transfer of massive proportion. I dont
think many people have really begun to consider the implications of this. It is important to
remember that the generation in this huge cohort spans twenty years. The life courses of people born in 1946 are very
different from those born almost a generation later, though this younger group is still
considered part of the Baby Boomers. To illustrate, the leading edge of the Baby Boomers
reached adulthood in the tumultuous 1960s. For
better or worse, they altered many prevailing customs and beliefs including rules that
governed courtship, marriage, family formation, divorce and definitions of proper gender
associated behavior. The older boomers were
at a different point in their careers than were the younger part of the cohort when the
economic woes of the late 1980s hit. Members
of the younger group were still in school or in the early years of their careers. In all likelihood, 65th birthday
celebrations in the year 2011 will be dramatically different from celebrations that occur
20 years later. What are some of
the futures that we can imagine for this population as it ages? And what in particular can we imagine about the
aging of the Jewish population? First of all,
todays children, those aged 20 or below, will probably have significantly less
interaction with the elderly than Baby Boomers had with their parents and grandparents. That is unfortunate. There will be fewer family support systems in
place. There will be a greater need for
nursing home care because there will be less support in the community. But, at the same
time, Baby Boomers will be less interested in the current nursing home model. Thus we at the Hebrew Home will face a real
conflict, which will require us to develop a new paradigm.
And this holds true for our identity as a Jewish institution as well.[1] Baby Boomers will
not want to share a room; they will not want to go down the hall to take a shower. And theyre probably going to want a lot more
drugs, a lot more sex, and maybe a little more rock and roll. Weve implemented two out of three at the
Hebrew Home - and sex is one of them. When it comes to
drugs, Baby Boomers will look for magic bullets to cure their ills. We will have to figure out how to sustain an
ever-increasing medicated world. Tele-medicine
will be critical for those who stay at home, and many more people will be able to stay at
home. I suspect there will be a large
increase in euthanasia. When it comes to
sex, Baby Boomers will look for sexual rights in long-term care that simply dont
exist today. The Hebrew Home is the only
nursing home in the United States that has a Sexual Bill of Rights. There will be
tremendous issues of privacy, which is a constant challenge in any institutional
environment. How do you preserve privacy and
independence while providing institutional care? We will be using
advanced technology with chronic care, which will be the single biggest type of care we
will provide. Due to current shortages of nurses and nurses aides, and low
admissions to training programs, there will be fewer nurses and home-care aides, home-care
workers and nurses' aides. Other trends that
we need to keep in mind are that there will be a more significant distinction between two
classes of healthcare - poor and rich. There
will be age-based rationing of care as younger, healthier people seek more and more health
care. The Hebrew Home is
already working on building an innovative and different nursing home prototype for the
next generation. But there are remaining
questions for the future that we must ask ourselves: v Will the next
generation be healthier than todays older generation? v Will they be more
independent? v Will they be more
financially secure? v Will our society
change its view of ageism and provide more productive and purposeful roles for elderly
people? [1] All nursing homes are facing a ten-year demographic dip corresponding with a ten-year period when the birth rate dropped dramatically in the 1920s and 30s. And this applies to Jewish demographics as well. This has led Jewish nursing homes around the country to a real struggle over their identities. We are fortunate at the Hebrew Home because we are at the vortex of many Jewish communities, and we anticipate the future will stay that way. To view other essays from "The Future of Family and Tribe" seminar, click here. To join the conversation at Jewish Public Forum Talk, click here.To access the Jewish Public Forum Archive, click here.To receive Jewish Public Forum columns by email on a regular basis, complete the box below: |
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