In coming decades, many forces will shape our economy and our society, but in all likelihood no single factor will have as pervasive an effect as the aging of our population.  In 2008, as the first members of the baby-boom generation reach the minimum age for receiving Social Security benefits, there will be about five working-age people (between the ages of twenty and sixty-four) in the United States for each person aged sixty-five and older, and those sixty-five and older will make up about 12 percent of the U.S. population.  Those statistics are set to change rapidly, at least relative to the speed with which one thinks of demographic changes as usually taking place.  For example, according to the intermediate projections of the Social Security Trustees, by 2030--by which time most of the baby boomers will have retired--the ratio of those of working age to those sixty-five and older will have fallen from five to about three.  By that time, older Americans will constitute about 19 percent of the U.S. population, a greater share than of the population of Florida today.

This coming demographic transition is the result both of the reduction in fertility that followed the post-World War II baby boom and of ongoing increases in life expectancy.  Although demographers expect U.S. fertility rates to remain close to current levels for the foreseeable future, life expectancy is projected to continue rising.  As a consequence, the anticipated increase in the share of the population aged sixty-five or older is not simply the result of the retirement of the baby boomers; the "pig in a python" image often used to describe the effects of that generation on U.S. demographics is misleading.  Instead, over the next few decades the U.S. population is expected to become progressively older and remain so, even as the baby-boom generation passes from the scene.  As you may know, population aging is also occurring in many other countries.  Indeed, many of these countries are further along than the United States in this process and have already begun to experience more fully some of its social and economic implications.

Even a practitioner of the dismal science like me would find it difficult to describe increasing life expectancy as bad news.  Longer, healthier lives will provide ... Log in to view full article.