THE PROPORTIONATE NUMBER of older people in our population has mounted rapidly over the last 50 years and will probably continue to rise steadily through the next generation. The full impact of this major population trend on our social and economic structure is now being realized. We are coming to recognize the need for measuring the material and spiritual aspects of our way of life- our employment practices, social security system, retirement plans, living arrangements, health services and facilities, social and recreational resources, and educational potentialities—against the need for making more meaningful and pleasant the years now added to the average lifetime. Much of the groundwork for a long and useful life can best be laid during the regular school years. But our public schools must also assume new responsibilities. They must offer educational opportunities appropriate to adult development and preparation for the mature and less active years of later life. Oscar. R. Erving Federal Security Administrator. III AMONG MONG the problems that face the public school, few are more important than that of providing suitable learning opportunities for those in the latter half of life. Considering only occupational and economic problems, persons over 50 offer the educational institutions of the country a great challenge. They especially need help in making vocational readjustments and in retraining. From other viewpoints, too-citizenship, leisuretime, family living, and health—this age group offers a challenge. In fact, the orientation of our entire culture to the actualities and potentialities of a new age structure in our population awaits major assistance from the schools. This bulletin, concerned primarily with education for the aging, indicates only some of the beginnings of the programs that need to be worked out by the schools and other educational agencies. While the literature on problems of the aging is growing rapidly, little is specifically concerned with the role of the school. There is considerable evidence, however, that the schools are taking hold of these problems. A New Social Phenomenon The Trend Throughout the Western World a new phenomenon in human experience has appeared-the rapidly growing numbers of older people with an accompanying host of economic, social, and personal problems. So far as is known no culture throughout history has ever had such a high proportion of people past middle age as has our Western civilization at midcentury. The chief reasons for this condition are the advances in medical science and the decrease in number of young immigrants. Here is the trend of those aged 65 and above in the United States, according to Census data and predictions based on medium birth rate and medium mortality rate, disregarding the influence of immigration.1 Here is an 88-percent increase from 1900 to 1950 in the percentage of older people in the total population with another 42-percent growth predicted within the next quarter century. 'Immigration will tend to lower the proportion of older people slightly, and any reduction in mortality will raise it. Barring unforeseen shifts the number of children in our elementary schools will reach its peak around 1956 but, if mortality Forecasts of the population of the United States, 1945-75. U. S. Bureau of the Census. Issued March 15, 1948. |