The findings are part a report released on Thursday called
Older Americans 2008: Key Indicators of Well-Being, which
features data from 15 federal agencies on trends in population,
economics and health issues.
"It gives you a status report of the older population,"
said Richard Suzman of the National Institute on Aging, a part
of the National Institutes of Health.
"We've seen significant improvements in poverty. The
percent of those with low income has gone down, education has
increased, life expectancy has increased," Suzman said.
"But there are some notes of concern. Obesity has gone up
quite significantly. And there are some large disparities. The
life expectancy gap between whites and blacks has narrowed but
is still large. There is a big wealth gap between whites and
blacks," he said in a telephone interview.
The report forecasts that by 2030, the number of Americans
over the age of 65 will nearly double to 71.5 million, or 20
percent of the U.S. population, up from 12 percent, or 37
million people, in 2006.
It found that older adults in the United States are far
better educated than prior generations. In 2007, 76 percent of
those over 65 had high school diplomas, and at least 19 percent
had a bachelor's degree, up from 24 percent with high school
diplomas in 1965 and just 5 percent with bachelor's degrees.
But much of those gains in education were enjoyed by
non-Hispanic whites over the age of 65. Eighty-one percent of
non-Hispanic whites age 65 and older had finished high school
in 2007, compared with 72 percent of Asians, 58 percent of
blacks and only 42 percent of older Hispanics.
And while the proportion of people with incomes below the
poverty line fell to 9 percent in 2006, down from 15 percent in
1974, median net worth for households headed by white people
aged 65 and older in 2005 was six times that of households
headed by blacks.
Not surprisingly, older Americans, like many other groups,
are getting fatter, the researchers said. In the 2005-2006
study period, 37 percent of women aged 65 to 74 were obese, and
24 percent of women age 75 and over were obese. This is up from
the 1988-1994 study period, when 27 percent of women age 65 to
74 and 19 percent of women age 75 and over were obese.
Despite many studies touting the benefits of exercise, the
report found no significant change in the percentage of older
people engaged in physical activity between 1997 and 2006.
While the report noted that Americans are living longer
than ever before, life expectancy in the United States still
lags many other industrialized countries, including Canada,
France, Sweden and Japan.
For example, women in Japan who reached the age of 65 in
2003 could expect to live 3.2 years longer than women in the
United States. Men in Japan who reached age 65 lived 1.2 years
longer than men in the United States.
The report is available online at
www.AgingStats.gov.
