Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 27, 1993 TAG: 9305270124
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The object of Frank's wrath is the Burnett persona of a dumpy old washerwoman. In Burnett's heyday as a television comic, senility and slipping dentures were guaranteed laugh riots.
"She couldn't get away with that today," said Frank, 80. "It's not funny anymore."
Once treated lightly, older people are now too large a group to antagonize - and too large and diverse a group to be explained away or laughed off with outmoded stereotypes.
Numbers partly explain why the old ways of looking at old age are no longer useful. In 1955, Americans 65 or older made up 8 percent of the population. Now they are 13 percent, and that percentage could increase to as high as 20. By the end of a baby boomer's natural lifetime, there could be two retirees for every teen-ager.
Thanks to new medical technologies and greater awareness of fitness and health, people are living longer. Life expectancy in 1900 was 47. Today it's 74. A generation ago, parenting and work could consume nearly a lifetime. Now a retiree's golden years may span two or three decades.
For many Americans, this so-called "third age" is uncharted territory. People who once relied on children and jobs to define them and give them self-worth now are compelled to turn to something else when they turn 65.
"That's the first question for many retirees: `What am I going to do now?' " said Scott A. Bass, the director of the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.
So far, many retirees - and society at large - have yet to come up with a satisfactory answer, Bass said.
"All of a sudden, old people seem to have been discovered," said Diane Crispell, editor of American Demographics magazine.
This "discovery" has taken many forms. For the first time in more than a decade, advocates hope the White House will sponsor a conference on aging.
In September, Simon & Schuster plans to release "The Fountain of Age" by Betty Friedan. According to publicists, Friedan's new book will do for old people what her "Feminine Mystique" did for women. As she did 30 years ago, Friedan will "redefine" everything, a "Fountain of Age" press release gushes.
As gerontology goes pop, the American Association of Retired Persons seeks a facelift for its starchy image. Best known as a lobbyist for its 34 million members, AARP plans to go Hollywood. Along with UCLA, it is sponsoring a conference for TV producers timed to coincide with Emmy week. The hope is to win more sympathetic and realistic portrayal of old people on television and to convince advertisers that old people are an overlooked market.
"Older people are terribly underserved by TV," said the AARP's Ken Vest. "We're trying to get across the message that people don't fall off the conveyor belt of life when they turn 50. We're trying to let the networks and advertisers know that for many people, retirement is the high point of their life."
If some younger folks see retirees as doddering and infirm, others see them as strident and demanding. Advocates of "generational equity" portray retirees as "greedy geezers," financing comfortable retirements on the backs of their children and grandchildren. These claims overlook a larger picture, marketers and gerontologists say.
Some older people are frail. Some are Floridians lining up for early-bird dinner specials. Some are "super seniors," jetsetters who ski and surf in exotic locations, said Bass.
"It's all-of-the-above, it's none-of-the-above," he said. "It's much more complicated and diverse than that."
There is some debate about how diverse this group is. Today's retiree tends to be white, well-educated and comparatively well-off, said Robert Harootyan, a senior research associate at the AARP. In the last 20 years, the number of retirees who graduated from high school has doubled. High school graduates now make up 55 to 60 percent of the older population.
"This group is literate, aware and involved," he said. "It's a very different group" from previous retirees.
More healthful lifestyles mean fewer old people incapacitated by arthritis and heart disease. On the financial front, many of the men worked the same job for 20 or 30 years, and are the beneficiaries of good union pensions.
But don't be fooled by the apparent veneer of affluence, Bass said. The median income for individual older Americans is $9,422. Many older people are one illness or one big house repair away from the poverty line.
by CNB