Keeping up social contacts promotes health and happiness in old age. But staying socially engaged often depends on driving a car or finding reliable public transportation - both of which may be problems for older people.
For more than 25 years Nina Glasgow has been thinking about what it's like to grow old. Most of us-even professionals-would rather not. "While the proportion of older Americans is increasing exponentially, many sociologists aren't interested in studying aging because in our society we don't like to think about our own mortality," says Glasgow, a senior research associate in the Department of Rural Sociology who specializes in aging in rural communities.
Glasgow is convinced that the later years of life are not as bad as we fear-that, by and large, older people are satisfied with their lives.
Is there a key to aging successfully? Glasgow thinks so: stay involved.
"It's becoming increasingly clear that people who are more socially integrated-those who have larger family and friendship networks and who participate in clubs or volunteer activities-tend to be healthier and happier," she says.
In one study, Glasgow separated types of formal activities into those that people engage in just for fun, such as garden clubs or playing golf, and those that are more community oriented, such as being on the board of the United Way or volunteering in a soup kitchen. She was somewhat surprised to find that while women benefit equally from both types of activities, men were comparatively better off serving up meals for the homeless than strolling the links.
Why do socially connected people age more successfully?
"It probably has to do with the fact that people who engage in formal social activities become better problem solvers," Glasgow says. "They gain access to more information, in general, so they may have more information about how to take care of themselves. Other people have done research that shows being well integrated in informal relationships (with friends, family, neighbors) provides some sort of buffer to stress."
Staying socially engaged depends on access to good transportation. For most people, especially those who live in the suburbs or the countryside, that means driving their own cars. Participants in one of Glasgow's studies made it clear that garaging their sedan for good is a demoralizing experience, signifying the loss of independence.
"When you think about it, driving is an important rite of passage when you're 16-symbolizing freedom, independence, and self-reliance," Glasgow says. "It's a marker of the move into adulthood, just as the loss of driving is a marker of the realities of old age."
Glasgow found that men were particularly reluctant to hang up the car keys. In her study conducted in two rural counties in New York State, 78 percent of men 85 and older were still behind the wheel.
Not so for women. At age 85, only a little over 40 percent were still driving. Loss of driving is just one of several factors that Glasgow found put women at greater risk of becoming socially isolated as the years go on. There's the fact that women typically have less money than men. And that they are more likely to live alone.
While such disadvantages have been offset by the broader and stronger social networks women traditionally have had, the lives of baby-boom women have left them more vulnerable than their foremothers. Women born since 1946 are less likely to have married, are more likely to have been divorced, and will have had fewer children. The result is a loss in the number of immediate family members to care for them when they get older. Too, if a female boomer has children, she's unlikely to move in with them.
What's more, most boomer women have participated in the paid workforce, leaving them as prone as men to the 30-year period of "rolelessness" made possible by a combination of early retirement and increased longevity.
Men and women who retire at 60 are categorized by sociologists as the young-old, while those who are age 75 and above are the old-old. Since the 1970s significant numbers of early retirees have been picking up and moving to what researchers call "scenic, nonmetropolitan amenity destinations." That's not just the Gulf coast of Florida, either. The Catskills in New York, the Pocanos in Pennsylvania, the Maine coastline, and Michigan's Upper peninsula- are among the regions widely spread across the country that actively court healthy, active older Americans.
For good reason. These so-called in-migrants are typically better educated and more affluent than the older long-term residents they join. As such, they are the driving force in the development of rural areas: stimulating job growth, particularly in the service and health care sectors, and improving housing stock. (The consequences of the latter are debatable. For certain segments of the real estate market, no doubt the rising cost of housing is a boom. Whether that turns into the gentrification of the countryside-pushing out long-term residents and their offspring who need inexpensive housing to get started-is another matter.)
But have the transplants come to stay? Or will they leave-move back near their children or to cities with better medical and other support services-when their spouse dies or their own health begins to fail? Research on social integration inclines Glasgow to think that the more involved the newcomers are in the life of their adopted communities and in replacing the friendship networks they left behind, the more likely they will hang in for the long haul. She's currently in the midst of a nationwide, four-year U.S. Department of Agriculture-funded study to find out. The time couldn't be better.
"We're right on the verge of the boomers' retirement, so to understand what happens down the line has implications not only for the trajectory of individual lives but for planning the development of rural communities as well," Glasgow says.
Then there are implications for the national economy. Consider that in a mere 25 years, between 55 and 65 million U.S. residents will be age 65 or older. "Health care costs in this country are already very high," Glasgow points out. "Understanding the role of social integration can make a significant contribution to improving population health."
- Metta Winter
Hanging up the car keys greatly limits people's access not only to social and volunteer activities but also to services including doctors, banks, libraries, and food and clothing stores.
Public transportation is geared toward sticking to a schedule with little allowance for those who move slowly or need assistance in boarding. Specialized transportation for older people, such as Ithaca's award-winning Gadabout, a door-to-door van service complete with wheelchair lifts, has the opposite drawback. It's rarely on time. Because drivers help riders on and off the van, the schedule must be fluid. Too, users have to wait-sometimes an hour or more-for a ride back home from a 10-minute appointment. The requisite 24-hour advanced notice virtually puts an end to spontaneity.
"We need to do some real planning for the baby boom generation, Glasgow says, topping the list with mixed-use suburban and small town planning. "Typically we sprawl out into the countryside where there are no sidewalks, and services are located too far from a person's home to walk anyway."
Myth: Older people are incapable of and uninterested in engaging in productive activity.
Truth: Nationally, approximately 16 percent of men and 8 percent of women ages 65 and older are employed. A majority of older people report that they want to work but would do so only if employers would allow them to work part-time rather than full-time. Almost 50 percent of older people do volunteer work. Myth: Older people live lonely, isolated lives. Truth: While the extensiveness of one's social network tends to decline with age, the majority of older people are embedded in close family and friendship networks.
Myth: Aging is synonymous with the onset of serious health problems.
Truth: Although chronic disease and disability are more common among older people than younger age groups, the majority of older people are healthy. The prevalence of disability among older people has declined in recent decades, and diseases among older people usually do not result in mortality until well into old age.
Myth: A large portion of the older population lives in nursing homes.
Truth: Only about 5 percent of older persons live in nursing homes on any given day.
Myth: All older people are bad drivers.
Truth: Older drivers are less likely to wreck their cars than are young drivers. Adjusting for crashes per miles of driving, drivers ages 16-24 are the most likely to crash a car, drivers ages 65 and older are second most likely to cause a car crash, and drivers ages 25-64 are the least likely to crash a car. Some older people are good drivers and some are not, as is the case among other age groups.