The average life span in the United States increased from an expected 70 years in 1960 to 79 years in the 1990s. The expected life span for women is greater than that for men. Additionally, the expected life span applied to individuals born in the year for which the statistic is determined·not for those individuals already in their elderly years. A similar life expectancy increase, however, developed with respect to all age groups in the American population. Between 1970 and 1990, that segment of the population aged 65 years old or older increased more than twice the rate of general population growth. While the 65 and over group is the fastest growing segment of the American population, the 75 and over group is the fastest growing segment among those aged 65 or older. Prior to the 1970s, the 75 and over segment of the population was too small to merit much attention as a separate population segment. In the beginning of the 1990s, however, this segment of the population merits a great deal of special attention.
Persons aged 65 years old or older account for approximately 12 percent of the American population. Through the 1990s, the elderly population segment will not be as large as it will at a later time. Although the elderly segment is the fastest growing in the American population, this phenomena is occurring solely because of increased life spans. Constraining growth in this population segment at the present time is the low birth rate in the United States that prevailed in the 1930s·the "Great Depression." Near the end of the 1990s, the elderly population will stabilize, and then it will enter a decline. A significant growth trend will begin, however, when the baby-boomers (those individuals born in the late-1940s and early-1950s) begins to reach age 65·from about 2011 through 2021.
In the near-term, however, the number of American households headed by individuals aged 65 to 74 is expected to stabilize a 12.5 m...