Questions for societies with "Third Age" populations. The Extension-of-Life Working Group, The Gerontological Society of America

Abstract

By 2030, the number of people aged 65 and over in the United States will total 70.2 million, 20% of the U.S. population, making the older population a major consumer of goods and services. The demands of this growing group are already affecting the medical professional, changing the mix of patients, conditions treated, and what the profession and society consider acceptable outcomes. Medical education will have to adjust to these new demands by training in the diagnosis and treatment of older persons, by equating successful management of chronic conditions with curing illnesses or fixing hurts, and by dealing with the inevitability of death. Also, however, medical education should train students to understand that the rapid aging of the population has the potential to affect almost every human and societal arrangement and every social and economic institution, raising a host of ethical, moral, scientific, social, and economic questions. The Gerontological Society of America (GSA) has convened an informal working group to explore the issues raised by the extension of human life expectancy. The multidisciplinary group, which has 13 members from academia and the GSA, held its first meeting in May 1997, when it laid out the issues to be discussed in future meetings. To help frame the discussions, the group adopted the concept of the "Third Age," a time in the life course when for most people the basic work of parenting is done, when, under current arrangements and definitions, people are not heavily relied on for production (that is, a time when people for different reasons leave paid, full-time jobs), and when few positive roles are recognized. The group's discussions will explore sets of interrelated questions raised by longer life expectancy and the larger number of older people. These questions can be considered in five general themes: the further extension of human life expectancy, research choices, societal vision and values, global aging, and economies and Third Age populations. These questions are raised in the paper, and in coming months the group will discuss their implications.