THE ECOLOGY OF OUR AGING POPULATION.

The article focuses on the aging population in the U.S. The article discusses why larger proportions of the aged are found in certain areas and in certain types of communities. According to the author, aging is found in greater proportions in areas to which they have migrated and areas in which larger proportions of the mature population have remained to grow old together. Retirement from the labor market might well be accepted as the crucial act in determining the ecology of the aging. To develop an ecology of old people it is necessary to know something about their retirement status and their family characteristics. A large part of the aged men in 1940 were living in their own homes with their wives and were wholly or in part self-supporting through their labor. A large portion of the elderly women were not living in their own domiciles but in establishments with their sons or daughters, and they received their support wholly or in part from their offspring or from the state in the form of old age relief. From 1910 to 1950 the change went on with the aging showing consistent partiality only for rural-nonfarm residence.