No Country for Young Men? Silver-haired and Service-Oriented
February has a unique attribution as Spunky Old Broads Month. Ah, the Spunky Old Broads -- those wise, strong, active women we all know and love. At 64, my mother is very spunky (although she's a class act so I'm not sure the word "broad" applies). She's athletic and opinionated. Over the Christmas holiday, out mountain biking together amidst the splendor of Virginia's Allegheny mountains, she made it absolutely clear that I was never to place her in "a home". Her preference is to leave this life like the Eskimos/Inuit do out on the edge of a snow mound or something similar, on her own property . The Inuit custom in their society is for elderly people who became too sick or debilitated to care for themselves or contribute to society to voluntarily walk off into the night to die. While there's a nobility in that kind of selfless demise, for my mother and yours I would think, that's unlikely to happen. My siblings and I are absolutely committed to helping her stay in her own home as long as possible.
This month, the Atlantic Monthly, has a superb feature on what the US will look like by 2030,No Country for Young Men. Writer, Megan McCardle, (despite her blatant reference to Cormac McCarthy) gives an amazingly candid and well-researched look at the consequences of the aging of our nation. She shows in vivid detail what the face of America will look like as the Baby Boomer generation takes hold--not only addressing the much-discussed and frankly frightening economicsfrom an accounting perspective but rather digging down into how this changes our economy from production-focused (i.e. making the better mousetrap quicker) to service-oriented (how many gerontologists and senior care workers we're going to need to address this sea-change in our population demographics). She writes:
"As the Boomers age, they will consume fewer of the things that we produce efficiently, and more of the things that we provide relatively inefficiently. Productivity is notoriously difficult to project, but many forces will be pushing it downward as the Baby Boomers age.
Since services are labor-intensive, and the number of service-consuming seniors will grow rapidly, we’ll need a lot more workers (that’s bad news for those who favor restrictive immigration policies, particularly the kind that keep low-skilled workers out). And, of course, the mix of service workers that we’ll need will be different from what it is today. In effect, the next 20 years will require a massive transfer of resources and people away from the care of children, who will decline in relative number, and toward the care of old people."
Wooieeeeeeeeeeeeee, it's time to get with the program and start instituting national policies that will address this incoming tsunami of a domestic issue. How are dual income families and working women, married or single, going to afford this kind of care? Where are they going to find it in the quantity of providers we're going to need?
For my mom, when she's really old and incapable of caring for herself properly, we'll need to find an excellent and affordable nurse, home health aide, hospice worker...you name it. At Laborfair, we're thinking of these challenges now. We're here to help you prepare for this by matching you with great people you can hire direct for your aging parents. Go the FAIR!
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