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To imagine the U.S. population's age distribution in 2025, picture Florida today. Over the next quarter century or so, the entire country will come to look, in terms of age, remarkably like this traditional "retirement state" looks today.
By 2025, the U.S. median age will have climbed from 36 to almost 39...what it is in Florida now. It will continue to rise, reaching just a tad over 39 by 2040. Then, at mid-century, we'll look a little younger for a while as Generation X, a smaller group, reaches its senior years. From 2070 to the end of the century, the median age will again creep up, topping 40 in 2100.
Increasing life expectancy plays a big role in the aging of the U.S. population.The average 65-year-old woman today will live to 84. The average 65-year-old man, to 81. Improved medical technology and better education, which usually indicate awareness of nutrition and exercises as well as ability to pay for the best treatment, will continue to extend life spans. Baby boomers who live to turn 65 in 2020 or later will live a year longer than will today's 65-year-olds. Many demographers believe that today's newborns will see more-remarkable life expectancy gains and that they can expect to reach 100. Those extra years of life "will largely be healthy years," predicts James W. Vaupel, a demographer at Duke University.
The shift in the age mix will ripple through markets and businesses. It'll affect employment prospects, consumer tastes and preferences, demand for schools, health care, residences and much more. And it will strain the Social Security system. Our country's age structure used to form a pyramid...a large "base" of children, incrementally smaller groups of middle-aged in the middle and a tiny group of elderly forming the "point." Recently, the picture has looked more like a pear-shaped person with a bulge in the middle...a large group of middle-aged people. In time, the picture will be a straight pillar, with equal numbers of young, middle-aged and old people. That means fewer productive, working-age people to support a larger elderly group.
The older population will increasingly be more balanced between the sexes as men make strides in life expectancy. That will mean more affluence among older households.
Another change in the age makeup will be the race composition by age. For the next few decades, the older population will be mostly white and minorities will be significantly younger. But by the second half of the century, there will be a convergence of the proportion of elderly among all groups. In 2020, whites will make up 77% of all senior citizens; by 2100, their share will be just 47%, with today's "minorities" together accounting for the majority of older folks.
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