specific features of the book reinforce this pedagogical approach. The Focus on Practice sections demonstrate the relevance of the controversies for human services work in our society. The Focus on the Future sections make us ever mindful of the accelerating pace of change in our society and its implications. The Global Perspective and Urban Legends of Aging sections provide additional opportunities for expansive and critical thinking. The appendix offers guidance for researching and writing term papers on aging, and the online resources provided as part of the book’s ancillary package open up access to many additional digital resources. Whether you go on to specialized professional work or you never take another course in gerontology, our aim is directed at issues of compelling human importance, now and in the future. By returning again and again to those questions of perennial human interest, we express our hope that both teachers and students will find new excitement in questions that properly concern us all, whatever our age.
What Is New to This Edition?
This new edition builds on the unique approach adopted in earlier editions. There is a close link between concepts and controversies in each of the three broad domains of human aging: the life course, health care, and socioeconomic trends. This link proved to be so teachable in earlier editions that this organization has been reinforced in the current edition. We have also updated and augmented the figures and graphics in the book, using effective illustration and current data wherever appropriate. Information cited has been made as up-to-date as possible to reflect the most recent data and perspectives available. In addition, each chapter of controversies contains a feature section highlighting comparable issues in different countries around the world. These feature sections acknowledge the way in which aging is increasingly a global phenomenon with lessons of international significance. We’ve also included learning objectives at the beginning of each Basic Concepts chapter as well as a separate glossary of key terminology used throughout the book. To support students who intend to work in the field of aging or who want to be well prepared to work in any capacity in an aging society, we’ve updated the concluding chapter that explores new and emerging careers as well as questions about where the field of gerontology is heading now and in the future. In addition, instructors using this book can now receive at no cost a monthly electronic newsletter, Human Values in Aging, which provides resources and insights about the multiple dimensions of the experience of age. A subscription to this e-newsletter is available by contacting [email protected].
Ancillaries
Teaching Resources
This text includes an array of instructor teaching materials designed to save you time and to help you keep students engaged. To learn more, visit sagepub.com or contact your SAGE representative at sagepub.com/findmyrep.
Student Resources
This text includes access to select student learning resources. To learn more, visit sagepub.com or contact your SAGE representative at sagepub.com/findmyrep.
Acknowledgments
In preparing this 10th edition, I have been helped enormously by the many professors who have used earlier editions and have thoughtfully offered ideas on how to improve the book. In my previous role as director of academic affairs at AARP, it was a privilege to listen to faculty from around the country, and I am indebted to them, although they are not named here. I also acknowledge former colleagues at the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College who helped me over many years to refine the ideas found in these pages. I am especially grateful to the late Rose Dobrof for her guidance and inspiration. Let me express my gratitude to AARP and to John Rother, former executive vice president for policy and strategy, who shared with me his thoughtful reflections on the future of aging in America. Jennifer Sasser, my coauthor, has once again been indispensable. Above all, I thank my wife, Elizabeth, patient reader and thoughtful editor, and my children, Carolyn and Roger, who have made all the difference in my life.
—H. R. M.
Over the past decade, I have experienced many major life changes and transitions. One of the constants has been my ongoing collaboration with Harry “Rick” Moody, for which I continue to be so grateful. To all of the students and colleagues across the country who engage with our book, thank you for your generous ongoing feedback and support—I hope you see many of your very excellent suggestions manifested in this new edition! And, as always and forever, thank you to my family and closest friends for their encouragement and support. Where would I be without your love?
—J. R. S.
SAGE and the authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of the following reviewers:
Monika Ardelt, University of Florida
Lisa Borrero, University of Indianapolis
Jessica Clontz, Pennsylvania State University
Han-Jung Ko, Central Michigan University
Esther Kreider-Verhalle, York College, City University of New York
Kate de Medeiros, Miami University
Veronika Ospina-Kammerer, St. Leo University
Ebony Perez, St. Leo University
Prologue
It is no secret that the number of people 65 and over in the United States is growing rapidly, a phenomenon recognized as the “graying of America” (Himes, 2001). The numbers are staggering. There has been an exponential increase in older people in the United States since 1870: from 1 million up to 52 million in 2018—a number now larger than the entire population of Canada (Mather, Scommegna, & Kilduff, 2019). During recent decades, the 65 and older group has been increasing twice as fast as the rest of the population, and adults 80 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the population globally (Hudson & Goodwin, 2013).
As a result, the U.S. population looks different than it did earlier in the 20th century. In 1900, average life expectancy at birth was 47 but is now close to 79. A hundred years ago, only 4% of the population was over the age of 65; by 2017, that figure had jumped to more than 15%. The pace of growth continued in the first decades of the 21st century, and in 2011 the huge baby boom generation—those born between 1946 and 1964—moved into the ranks of older adults. The U.S. Census Bureau projects that by 2030 the proportion of the population over age 65 will reach close to 20% and there will be at least 400,000 people who are 100 years or older. This rate of growth in the older population is unprecedented in human history. Within a few decades, one in five of all Americans will be eligible for Social Security and Medicare, contrasted with one in eight today; in 2019, 9 out of 10 persons age 65 and older received Social Security (Social Security Administration, 2019a).
We usually think of aging as strictly an individual matter. But we can also describe an entire population as aging or growing older, although to speak that way is metaphorical. In literal terms, only organisms, not populations, grow older. Still, the average age of the population is increasing, and the proportion of the population made up of people ages 65 and older is rising. This change in the demographic structure of the population is referred to as population aging (Clark et al., 2004; Olshansky, 2015; Uhlenberg, 2009).
Population aging results from two factors: The proportion of older persons in a population increases because
