Welcome to part 1 of our 2 part series on home care solutions for baby boomers!
Believe it or not, baby boomers will start reaching retirement age in 2011. With 78 million of them in total, they’ll make a significant impact in their senior years, as they have at every phase of their lives.
How will baby boomers influence how senior care is delivered? First, consider the general characteristics of baby boomers. They are independent and self-reliant, having grown up in a time of change. Baby boomers are also expected to live longer than previous generations. They are health conscious and physically active, and they are accustomed to technology, having grown up in a time of non-stop technological change
Because they are independent by nature, baby boomers are likely to look for alternatives to traditional facility-based senior care. In fact, many of the 13 million baby boomers now caring for their aging parents have discovered in-home care. Many are providing at least some of the caregiving themselves, relying on professional caregivers for the rest, as they help their mothers and fathers “age in place” in the comfort of their own homes.
A 2006 study at the University of Southern California’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology reports that baby boomers are more committed to caring for their parents than were their own mothers and fathers. (This research followed two generations of 333 families in the USC Longitudinal Study of Generations.)
As they help their parents, baby boomers are seeing the advantages of aging at home and thus may be more likely to choose in-home care for themselves when the time comes.
However, baby boomers may not be as fortunate as their parents to have children to care for them. A result of their independent nature, many baby boomers have never married and as a whole have had fewer children. For instance, The Urban Institute reported in 2007 (Meeting the Long-Term Care Needs of the Baby Boomers: How Changing Families Will Affect Paid Helpers and Institutions) that women born between 1956 and 1960 had only 1.9 children on average, compared with 3.2 children for women born between 1931 and 1935. And between 1980 and 1998, the portion of women ages 40 to 44 without children almost doubled, to 19 percent.
This means baby boomers will have to rely more on professional in-home caregivers, since they may not have family caregivers available. “Baby boomers will be ideal candidates for in-home care because they have pursued active lifestyles and preventive health practices—and are likely to enjoy better health than previous generations of seniors,” says Debbie Hudson, RN, Manager of Comfort Keepers Client Care Services.
Many baby boomer select places like Ocala, Florida; The Villages, Florida; and Gainesville, Florida for retirement locations because of Central Florida‘s enjoyable weather and variety of activities. The good news is Comfort Keepers is available in these areas to support your in-home care needs.
Remember, we are Comfort Keepers and we are here to help! Comfort Keepers provides in-home care to seniors and the elderly living in Ocala, Gainesville, and The Villages Florida. We provide superior in-home care to seniors and the elderly throughout Central Florida so they can live enriched independent lifestyles! Call us today at 855-592-0013.
