The Human Population:The Human Population:Patterns, Processes, and ProblematicsPatterns, Processes, and Problematics

Lecture #14: Lecture #14: Part III: Population Structure & CharacteristicsPart III: Population Structure & Characteristics

1) Age & Sex1) Age & Sex2) 2) Population Aging & the life coursePopulation Aging & the life course

3) Family Demography & Life Chances3) Family Demography & Life Chances4) The Urban Transition4) The Urban Transition

Paul SuttonPaul Sutton

psutton@du.edupsutton@du.edu

Department of GeographyDepartment of Geography

University of DenverUniversity of Denver

“Most old people are pretty much alike …”

“…They have no interest in sex, they are miserable most of the time, they cannot work as effectively as younger people, and they have incomes below the poverty level. Now, if you believe that, I have some swampland in Florida you might want to buy!”

Older people are less alike than people at younger ages. Stereotype them at your own risk but know this: Their numbers and proportion of population are growing faster than any other age group of the population. This is the uncharted end of the demographic transition: An Aging Population.

What is Old?• Which of these pictures of Winston Churchill show an

“old” man?

• Aging comes with physical and mental degradation to varying extents for various people.

• 65 is a ‘magic’ number in that there is great consensus that we are ‘old’ when we reach that age.

• Individual aging and the aging of a population

Satchel Paige (1906-1982)Oldest Rookie ever to playBaseball (40 years old)Did not know exactly whenHe was born.Perhaps Baseball’s best Pitcher ever.

Satchel Paige Quote:

“How old would you be, if you didn’t know how old you was”

How an Aging Population Changes Society

How many Old people are there?

Where are the old people?

How fast is the aging population growing?

The Big Table of Aging

Factoids

• 420 million old people (over 65) in world in 2000• 7% of the planet’s population• Rate of growth of elderly (1.9%) faster than

world rate of population growth (1.3%)• 14% of world pop in developed countries• 41% of world’s elderly in developed countries• Increasing Life Expectancy and Declining

Fertility act in combination to dramatically increase the size and proportion of elderly in the population

Top 10 Nations Numbers of People over 65

Top 10 Nations % of Population over 65

Declining Mortality and Increasing Life Expectancy

Population Over 65 determined more by fertility than mortality

Individual Aging• Could you live forever if you were able to avoid

fatal accidents and fatal communicable diseases, and if you had as healthy a lifestyle as possible?

• NO. Senescence goes on no matter what you do.• Senescence: A decline in physical viability and

increase in vulnerability to disease that increases with age.

• Why do we age? Wear & Tear or Planned Obsolescence?• Senility is NOT Senescence

Social Aspects of Aging• Some Age stratification stereotypes: 1) Elderly are more conservative politically and socially.

2) Elderly are more prone to despondency and impairment

3) Elderly are more intolerant of others especially the young

Status indicators likeMoney, political clout,And breadth of social Relations all suggest Status of elderly was Declining in WesternSociety until about aDecade ago.

How Modernization Lowers the status of the Elderly

Status of the Elderly• As a country modernizes the elderly lose status

• After a while elderly regain status because many of the processes reducing status disappear

• Of the wealthiest 400 Americans, 155 (39%) are over 65.

• The peak age for wealth is 55-64

• A large fraction of the very wealthiest inherited their wealth.

Wealth and Age

Some Social Context of Aging & The Life Course

• In U.S. society the status of the elderly fell and is now rising. As each new generation enters their “Golden Years” their character is markedly different from one another.

• People age 65 and up today are more likely to be registered to vote and more likely to vote. This is a common “Age Effect”; however, from 1960 to now the people over 65 have become even more likely to vote whereas people 18-24 have become even less likely to vote. This puts more power in the hands of the elderly.

• In 2000 only 65% of those over 75 had high school diploma

• In 2000 87% of those aged 25-29 had high school diploma

• In 1960 only 19% of those over 75 had college degree

• In 1960 of those aged 25-29 28% had college degree

Women outnumbering Men at the Older Ages

The “Third Age” (The Young Old)• The idea of ‘retiring’ at some age (often 65) and

enjoying life is a very recent one.• In first half of 20th century most of the elderly

were 65-74 and most worked until they were not longer physically able to work.

• “Third Agers” are those who are still healthy enough to engage in all normal activity but no longer have to work.

• A major motivation of Social Security was to entice older people out of the work force.

Retirement, Income, & Resources

• People retire when they can afford to. For most of us it is not soon enough in our life.

• In 1890 75% worked past the age of 65• In 2000 only 18% of pop still working after 65• In 2000 only 9% of women over 65 still working• Average Age of retirement 1950 (66) Today (63)• Retirement Transition is getting “Fuzzier”• Social Security allows reduced benefits for early

retirees • (born before 1938 full benefits at 65) • (born after 1959 you don’t get benefits until you are 67)

Income and Retirement• People who retire have reduced incomes (duh!)

• The minimum social security benefit is below the poverty level. Although SSI was established in 1974 to guarantee poverty level income for really poor elderly. Poverty rates of people over 65 went from 35% to 10% from 1959-1998

• In 1999 median income of over 65 households was 22,812 per year. (less than 65 it was $46,805)

• Median income for people over 65 still working: $45,781• Median income for people under 65 and working: $37,430

More Money and Aging information• Average annual social security benefits: $10,486• 90% of all households with someone over 65 in them

collect social security• Most people get by by combining Social Security with

SSI, or Pension, or Rent, or Investments, or..• Average age of peak net worth: 65-74• Net worth of people over 75 higher than 45-54• Education and net worth:

– Gone to college $301,000

– High School Graduate $157,000

– No High School $63,000

Ethnic Differences in Money & Aging

• Aging is much tougher for Ethnic Minorities

• In 2000 only 8.3% of African American population over 65 compared to 14.8% of white

• Only 6% of Hispanic Population over 65

• Why? Higher Fertility, Higher Mortality

• Percent of Over 65 in Poverty:

8.2% Whites, 26.4% of Blacks, 21.0 % Hispanic

• Incomes of over 65 Population:

Whites $23,344, Blacks $16,312, Hispanic $16,858

Old People & Who they live with• Historically elderly live with their family and

often owned the home everyone lived in.

• Increasingly elderly live separate from their family and this is a bemoaned fact by many:

• “The multi-generational (aka ‘extended’) family is disappearing as a victim of the move toward smaller families, the expansion of the female labor market, the geographic mobility of people, and the tendency of the young toward more individualistic lifestyles”

The Old-Old or Fourth Age• People over 85 a reasonable approximation

• However, some people under 85 have senesced much more than some over 90.

• 4.5% of population over 65 in a nursing home

• Most are over 85 years old.

• About 2/3 of people over 85 report they are healthy

• Centenarians (people who make it to 100)

Ten Americans, born before 1900, look back on a century that spanned the Depression, world wars, and the advent of airplanes and automobiles (article in Christian Science Monitor)

To a large degree, the centenarians in the following pages belong to the Sir Winston Churchill school of aging.

"We are happier in many ways when we are old than when we were young," Churchill said in his later years. "The young sow wild oats. The old grow sage.“

They are also splendid representatives of a trend in the United States. The number of centenarians is increasing dramatically. Today, the US Census Bureau puts the figure at around 65,000, up from 36,000 in 1990. In 20 years, the number could reach 200,000.

To mark this growing bounty, the Monitor's editors decided to create a collection of portraits of 100-year-olds in photos and words.

The Old-Old as a fraction of over 65 Population

The Onion Article on Birth ControlSÃO PAULO, BRAZIL—During a visit to the teeming slums of São Paulo Monday, Cardinal

Anthony Bevilacqua warned the city's starving masses against the evils of contraception, urging them to "be fruitful and multiply" and do "everything in [their] power" to resist the mortal sin of birth control.

"In Genesis, God commands us to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the Earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish and birds and every other living thing," said Bevilacqua, speaking before more than 200,000 malnourished São Paulo slum dwellers. "It is not for man to decide whether the world should have more babies than it can reasonably support. God will decide whose seed shall find purchase and when."

Above: Children wait in line for food from relief workers in Bangladesh. Right: Cardinal Bevilacqua.

The gathering, which took place on a muddy hillside crowded with tin-and-tarpaper shacks, was one of many to take place around the world Monday—a day Pope John Paul II declared World Childbirth Day.

"No wonder we are plagued by diseaseand high infant mortality," said São Paulo father of eight Oranjinho Cruz, speaking from his dilapidated one-room home, which lacks electricity or potable water. "God has been punishing us for trying to prevent the miraculous gift of conception."

In Calcutta, a city where 53 percent of residents are under 18, Catholic missionaries delivered a similar message of love and procreation."In this life, there is a right path and a wrong path, and which you take is entirely up to you," said missionary Christopher Halloran, addressing a group of 4,500 villagers crammed into a schoolhouse. "Will you deny God's wisdom by using condoms, or will you shine in the divine light of unprotected sex? The choice is clear.""God does not want you to choke the rivers of fertile bounty with immoral birth-control pills," continued Halloran, framed by a backdrop of brown, withered crops and skeletal, half-living farm animals. "He wants you to continue expanding your families. If your babiesstarve, Jesus will forgive them.“

The words of Halloran and his fellow missionaries have struck a chord with the impoverished masses of the world."We were told we should not use condoms to prevent the spread of HIV," said Luis Ortiz of Bogotá,

Colombia. "The man from the Church assured us that the Lord will protect us from disease, provided we are true to His wish that we produce more children than we can possibly care for."

Added Ortiz: "Life in this shantytown is difficult, but our troubles are nothing compared to what we will face in the Lake Of Fire if we try to live within our means and regulate the number of offspring we produce, as Satan teaches."

Though critics have called the Catholic Church's

anti-contraception campaign irresponsible and

dangerous, particularly in regions where food

and medical facilities are scarce, the missionaries

Remain steadfast in their commitment to fighting

the spread of birth control.

"No man-made organization knows God's will,"

said Atlanta-born missionary Lucas Roberts, 24,

handing out Bibles to polio-stricken children in

Dhaka, Bangladesh. "His ways are mysterious and

noble. All we can do is interpret His words as they

appear in the Good Book. And those words clearly

state that we have an obligation to shun effective

methods of population control.“

Responding to critics, Cardinal Bevilacqua said the Catholic Church is not oblivious to the plight of the impoverished, noting that it offers a sanctioned way to postpone the inevitable fruit of God's will.

"For those who want to practice God's natural birth control, there are two options," Bevilacqua said. "You can try abstinence or, if you are married, you can try natural family planning, also known as the rhythm method. This has proven up to 87 percent effective, which is more than suitable for maintaining a reasonable household. So long as no seed is spilled, God will not immediately strike you down."

Bevilacqua also noted that, in cases in which natural family planning fails, unwanted children can be sent to Catholic orphanages, where they will be cared for and groomed to spread word of the punishment awaiting those who impede God's grand biological destiny.

A villager in Bamako, Mali, reads a Catholic Church pamphlet.