In his groundbreaking 1980 account of the baby boomers, “Great Expectations,” Landon Y. Jones predicted that this generation would pioneer a new model for old age. The cohort born between 1946 and 1964 “promises to be relatively healthier, better educated, and more certain of its desires,” Jones wrote.
“For the baby boomers, to be old may someday have all the possibilities of youth.” Someday has arrived. And Jones turns out to have been prescient about this generation’s forever-young inclinations.
But he may have been overly optimistic about the U.S. government’s ability or willingness to meet baby boomers’ burgeoning needs.
James Chappel’s useful new social and cultural study, “Golden Years: How Americans Invented and Reinvented Old Age,” puts this shortfall in historical context. Chappel, an associate professor of history at Duke University and a senior fellow at the Duke Aging Center, wears his erudition lightly. Writing in clear, accessible prose, he surveys a century’s worth of evolving understandings and experiences of old age in America.
Through a progressive lens, he also examines some roads not taken — including the failure to create a more generous social safety net, pay more attention to disabled and minority populations, and reckon with the effects of climate change. In his introduction, Chappel cites the long-term care crisis, the mounting cost of healthcare and a lack of labor protection for caregivers as major challenges. He notes th.