The Great Graying Of America

"IN the long run we're all dead," said John Maynard Keynes. Getting to the exit in the long or short run is called aging, and gerontology, the science of aging, is a booming field because so many of us are outlasting the biblical span of "three score and ten."

- EDWARD KOSNER

The aging of America is not only a challenge to the elderly, but to their spouses, siblings and children as well.

And it strains the country's improvised safety net, which was never designed to maintain old people in the style to which many of them have become accustomed.

So it's no accident that aging has become a major issue in what was once one of the youngest countries in the world. Since 1960, the median age of Americans has risen nearly nine years-to 38.3 years from 29.6. Once an American reaches 65 in decent health, he or she-mostly she-can expect to enjoy another 15 to 20 good years. Modern diet and health care help explain their staying power. The implications of this demographic evolution are profound.

These issues and many more are explored in "Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age" by James Chappel, a professor of history at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center. It's a lucid, comprehensive examination of a complex issue, and readers can be excused if, by the time they've turned the last of the book's fact-andanalysis-crammed pages, they feel as if they've aged a few years.

As Mr. Chappel tells us, the burden of an aging society falls disproportionately on women: For every 100 men over 65, there are 125 women and more than a quarter of them live alone. In the absence of government programs beyond Social Security, older women, whether living solo or en famille, often find themselves drafted to care for other aged relatives or for children either lacking a parent or whose parents must work to support the family.

And it's not necessarily a temporary gig, given women's longer life expectancy almost two-thirds of those over 85 are female. "Other countries have social safety nets," the sociologist Jessica Calarco points out. "The U.S. has women." Even with limited federal assistance beyond Social Security and Medicare, a thir