America’s Newest Pioneers: Elder Orphans

Elder Orphans. Have you heard the term?  Not many people have.
Elder Orphans are people who age alone. How many elder orphans would you guess are in the US today? Can you imagine 14 million? There are. If they were U.S. State, they’d be the 5th largest, smaller only than California, Texas, New York and Florida and if they were a city, they’d be larger than the combined population of New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.
In some cases, people age solo because they never had children; no next generation is there to help them. In many cases people cared for family and others – their children, spouses, parents, grandparents, in-laws and friends – out-lived them and are now left with no help for themselves. In a few rare cases, they (mostly men) are orphan because they are estranged from family members.
Anyone who lives long enough faces challenges, sometimes daily in what life requires all of us and sometimes less often but far more dramatically when misfortune, accidents, disease or disability befall us. Elder orphans face those alone; both the mundane and the extraordinary.
The good thing about having an identity – a name and a description of the circumstance – is that elder orphans can find one another, create a community (even if it’s just a virtual community via social media), share information, provide support and chart a path for their remaining life decades.
Given that marriage rates have declined, divorce rates keep apace, more people (especially women) remai...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - June 6, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Aging Source Type: blogs