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Senior
population going up By Lee Shearer
According
to the state's figures, there were 43,730 people 65 and over in the 12
counties that make up the Northeast Georgia Regional Development Center's
territory as of 2000. By 2010, there will be 78,107, a 79 percent
increase. The
area includes Barrow, Clarke, Elbert, Greene, Jackson, Jasper, Madison,
Morgan, Newton, Oconee, Oglethorpe and Walton counties. Actually,
the number of older persons in the area has been rising sharply for the
past decade, according to U.S. Census figures. The
number of people 60 and older grew by 26 percent between 1990 and 2000 in
the 12-county RDC area, according to a state Department of Human Resources
analysis of census figures. Only two of the state's dozen RDC areas added
older people at a faster rate - the Atlanta area, which saw a 29 percent
increase, and the Georgia Mountains region, which has become a popular
retirement area, at 38 percent. Statewide, the number went up 20 percent. Part
of the trend is because people are living longer and part is the aging of
the so-called baby boom generation, people born after World War II when
birth rates climbed sharply in the United States. The beginning of the
baby boom is usually put at 1946, but birth rates actually began to climb
in about 1940 after declining during the Great Depression (1929 through
the 1930s). People born in 1940 will turn 65 in just two years, in 2005. But
more factors than aging and longevity are contributing to the increasing
number of older people, said Doug Bachtel, a demographer with the
University of Georgia's Department of Housing and Consumer Economics. Most
of the increase is simply a reflection of the region's overall rapid
population growth, he said. While the number of people 60 and older grew
42 percent in Oconee County between 1990 and 2000, for example, the
overall population growth in Oconee was even greater at 49 percent. And
paradoxically, the increases reflect Georgia's youth, he said: because
Georgia is an overall young state, it doesn't take a lot of new older
people to account for a large percent increase. ''The
fact is, though, the elderly is going to be a rapidly growing group,'' he
said. For
example, one in six people over 65 is legally blind - an argument for
better public transportation in the area, said Roger Keeney, chairman of
the Athens-Clarke County Commission on the Disabled. ''They
grew up in cars and it's going to be real hard to get them out of that
into public transportation,'' Bachtel said. ''With sprawl, of course, it
will be a major factor.'' Older
people are also more conservative, less likely to vote in favor of school
bonds or tax increases, and more concerned with health care and crime as
political issues, Bachtel said. The
aging trend has some planners wondering if government and private
agencies, already financially pinched, will be able to meet the growing
need for such services as home-delivered meals, transportation and nursing
care. ''Funding
is not remotely keeping up with demand. For 20 years it hasn't been going
up to match the population growth,'' said Kathryn Fowler, executive
director of the Athens Community Council on Aging, a non-profit
corporation which provides ''meals on wheels,'' adult day care and other
services to older people in Clarke and several surrounding counties. In
1984, the waiting list to get on the agency's home-delivered meals program
was 15 people; today it's 90 people, she said. The wait would be even
longer if area churches and charitable foundations had not stepped in to
help with money and volunteers as government funding has shrunk, she said. There
may be a shortage of people to fill such jobs as home caregivers, just
when the need is greatest, said Peggy Jenkins, director of the Northeast
Georgia Agency on Aging. But
today's population of older people is a strikingly different one than
those of 30 years ago, said Josephine Brown, who has been executive
director of Newton County Senior Services for 32 years. ''People
are living longer, staying active longer and are more health-conscious,''
Brown said. ''When
I first started, my clientele were a bit passive and laid back, more or
less looking for something to wind down with after working 30 or 40 years
in one industry. The ones now are more active, demanding more educational
activities,'' she said. ''The people I was dealing with at the beginning,
a lot came out of the Depression, and not a lot were college-trained or
had been to technical school. Now I'm getting retired nurses,
psychiatrists, accountants, people who have owned their own businesses,
and a lot are willing to do volunteer work.'' They're
also more willing and able to help raise funds to replace the shrinking
pot of state and federal funds aimed at helping the older persons, she
said. ''It's
more about lifelong learning,'' Fowler said. ''The challenges for us are
going to be to have the resources available, not just the finances but the
facilities and the staffing.'' COUNTY - PEOPLE OVER 60 IN
2000 (% INCREASE SINCE 1990) Source: Georgia Department
of Community Affairs Copyright © 2002 Global
Action on Aging |
