Cindy Abrams never married or had children, a fate forged partly by chance and partly by choice. The Connecticut woman once dated a man she thought could be The One but chucked him when her dad objected because he wasn’t Jewish. Subsequent romances were fleeting, infrequent, unimportant. She prioritized her profession above all else, climbing high in fields of finance and earning enough to easily indulge her love of travel and sports.<\/p>\n
Now semi-retired, Abrams has jetted as far as Thailand and South Africa to sate her wanderlust and spends much of her spare time skiing, hiking or golfing.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good plan \u2026 \u201cas long as your body cooperates,\u201d Abrams said.<\/p>\n
But lately, her 61-year-old body hasn\u2019t been cooperating. When Abrams gets sick, she has no spouse to chauffeur her to doctor appointments or to assist her at home. She has no son or daughter to cook during her convalescence or to ensure that her bills get paid. As she pondered a planned shoulder surgery, Abrams ticked off the hours of distance between herself and her extended family. Her local friends, mostly members of her ski club, are abundant but also aging and preoccupied with their own needs.
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\n\u201cI struggle, just because of my personality\u2014I\u2019m an introvert,\u201d Abrams said. \u201cI struggle with creating enough relationships to have people I can count on when I need some help.\u201d<\/p>\n
The closeness of many generations living in the \u2026 same community is really disappearing. So families are losing the ability to take care of each other.
\n— Carol Goldberg, PhD, ABPP<\/p><\/blockquote>\nYears ago, families were the go-to caregivers for people as they aged. But while most of America\u2019s older people can still count on being cared for by spouses or adult children if the need arises, more and more are like Abrams, reaching their retirement years single and childless, and starting to get concerned about what comes next.
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\nMany still relish the freedoms and benefits of a single, childless lifestyle. Yet that absence of familial support can become a problem if older adults discover they need help managing their health care, finances and physical chores. They also might miss more intangible things, like love. A paid caregiver or charitable neighbor can carry your groceries or take you to a medical appointment but might not fulfill your emotional needs.<\/p>\nWhat\u2019s Driving the Trend?<\/strong>
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\nRising divorce rates and the proportion of the population that never married are partly behind the trend. Census statistics show that 35 percent of 50- to 54-year-olds were single in 2010, up from almost 29 percent in 2000. Among 55- to 64-year-olds, 33 percent were single in 2010, compared to 30 percent in 2000.<\/p>\nFurther, rising longevity plays a role: average life expectancy in the United States now is 78.5 years, compared to 76.9 in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
Women tend to outlive men, especially as they approach extreme old age. Eighty-five percent of people who live past 100 are women. Women also are less likely than men to remarry, according to census data. Therefore, more women than men tend to find themselves alone during their retirement years.<\/p>\n
“People are living longer, so they’re outliving their spouses and contemporaries. Sometimes they might be alone because they get divorced or widowed. Or their children move far away or lose touch with them,\u201d said Carol Goldberg, PhD, ABPP, a New York-based clinical psychologist with a postdoctorate in geriatrics.
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\n\u201cThe closeness of many generations living in the same house or same community is really disappearing. So families are losing the ability to take care of each other. This is a very big issue,” Goldberg added.<\/p>\nAlmost one in five American women today ends her childbearing years without having borne a child. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Evelyn Fitzwater, DSN, RN, CS, associate director of the Center for Aging with Dignity at the University of Cincinnati’s College of Nursing, agreed. “It’s kind of a myth that just because you have kids that they’re going to be there for you. It’s a transient world, so your children can live all over the world. Or your children might not be as handy or available as you’d like, because they have their own challenges or commitments.”<\/p>\n
Childlessness has become a major issue today, beginning with the boomer generation. The reasons vary. Women have more educational and career opportunities than ever before, prompting some to choose profession over parenthood. Perhaps because of those opportunities, more women are delaying marriage, which further increases their likelihood of remaining childless. And birth control is better and more widely available than in decades past. Almost one in five American women today ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one in 10 in the 1970s, according to the Pew Research Center. In addition, gays and lesbians, marginalized in past decades, have become a more recognized population, and many choose childlessness.<\/p>\n
Being single and childless can, in some ways, position a person better for the retirement years, according to Ingrid Arnet Connidis, author of Family Ties & Aging<\/em> (2009).<\/p>\n
While they don’t have the benefit of two incomes or shared expenses, childless women tend to be better educated and are more likely to be employed than mothers, positioning themselves to be better off financially as they face retirement, Connidis found. They also tend to be more self-sufficient, she said.<\/p>\n
Finding \u2018Family\u2019 Elsewhere<\/strong><\/p>\n
Abrams expects she’ll end up in a nursing home, like both her parents did. She has lived in her house for 34 years and aims to move into a retirement community by age 70.<\/p>\n
Older people without children typically have higher rates of living in assisted living or long-term-care facilities, experts say.<\/p>\n
“I’ll go from independent living to assisted living to the nursing home to the mortuary,” Abrams said. “I’m not too crazy about the nursing home part, but I don’t want to be by myself, I don’t want to cook for myself, and it’ll be nice having some company.”<\/p>\n
But many older folks without family support are getting more creative to ensure caregiving and forestall institutionalization.<\/p>\n
Some people create their own social networks.<\/p>\n
“Friends sometimes become substitute family. Next of kin becomes someone who is not related by blood. People are redefining what it means to be a family,” Goldberg said.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m haunted by the knowledge that there is no one who will care about me in the deepest and most loving sense of the word at the end of my life.
\n–Jane Gross<\/p><\/blockquote>\nSome older folks find what they need by creating communities, or \u201cvillages,\u201d with people who have similar needs and interests. In Princeton, NJ, for example, a \u201cCommunity Without Walls\u201d formed in 1992. Members meet monthly and get together to go out for dinner or to indulge other interests. Those who need help with chores or whatnot can also find it there.<\/p>\n