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Impact of aging populations in industrialized countries on pensions, financial stability, employment, and younger generations; US and OECD countries; 4 articles. Contents: Setting the stage: a generation of centenarians? by James Vaupel; Can industrialized countries afford their pension systems, by Vincent J. Truglia; Confronting an aging world, by Judd Gregg; Maintaining prosperity, by Nicholas Vanston.

This spotlight provides an overview of thesituation of older persons in Myanmar, an under-studied country ofover-50-million population. Myanmar is of particular interest to researchersand policy makers, given its overall level of poverty and modestly rapidpopulation aging. Research on older persons, while increasing in recent years,remains sparse. Empirical evidence indicates that Myanmar older persons are inrelatively poorer health compared to those in neighboring countries. Many livein abject poverty and depend on their families for material support.Coresidence is very common and facilitates reciprocal exchanges acrossgenerations. Looking ahead, Myanmar confronts important challenges includingdemographic shifts that reduce availability of family support for older personsand increasing burden from chronic illnesses. Currently, government measuresare essentially absent, although a law on aging was drafted and is in theprocess to become legislation.

Prevailing stereotypes of older people hold that their attitudes are inflexible or that aging tends to promote increasing conservatism in sociopolitical outlook. In spite of mounting scientific evidence demonstrating that learning, adaptation, and reassessment are behaviors in which older people can and do engage, the stereotype persists. We use U.S. General Social Survey data from 25 surveys between 1972 and 2004 to formally assess the magnitude and direction of changes in attitudes that occur within cohorts at different stages of the life course. We decompose changes in sociopolitical attitudes into the proportions attributable to cohort succession and intracohort aging for three categories of items: attitudes toward historically subordinate groups, civil liberties, and privacy. We find that significant intracohort change in attitudes occurs in cohorts-inlater- stages (age 60 and older) as well as cohorts-in-earlier-stages (ages 18 to 39), that the change for cohorts-in-later-stages is frequently greater than that for cohorts-inearlier-stages, and that the direction of change is most often toward increased tolerance rather than increased conservatism. These findings are discussed within the context of population aging and development.

Reflections are offered on present & future aging trends in US society, & an attempt is made to dispel the popular myth that elders are mostly forgetful, sick, or of limited ability. From a futurist perspective, trends in aging are examined in relation to society, technology, the environment, the economy, & politics. Four future scenarios are outlined from the viewpoint of the generations of elders that will exist in four selected time periods -- toward 1999, 2001+, 2020, & 2040 -- & an exercise designed to encourage future-oriented thinking among elders is offered. Adapted from the source document.

The aging of America will reshape how we live and will transform nearly every aspect of contemporary society. Renowned life course sociologist Deborah Carr provides a lively, nuanced, and timely portrait of aging in the United States. The US population is older than ever before, raising new challenges for families, caregivers, health care systems, and social programs like Social Security and Medicare. Organized in seven chapters, Aging in America covers these topics: the history of aging and the development of theoretical approacheshow cultural changes shape our views on agingthe demographic characteristics of older adults todayolder adults' family lives and social relationshipsthe health of older adults and social disparities in who gets sickhow public policies affect the well-being of older adults and their familieshow baby boomers, Gen Xers, and millennials will experience old age Drawing on state-of-the-art data, current events, and pop culture, this portrait of an aging population challenges outdated myths and vividly shows how future cohorts of older adults will differ from the generations before them

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