Who Will Care for ‘Kinless’ Seniors?

[andhra_jp]

An estimated 6.6 percent of American adults aged 55 and older have no living spouse or biological children,
according to a study published in 2017 in The Journals of Gerontology: Series B.

About 1 percent fit a narrower definition — lacking a spouse or partner, children and biological siblings. The figure rises to 3 percent among women over 75.

Those aren’t high proportions, but they amount to a lot of kinless people:
close to a million older Americans without a spouse or partner, children or siblings in 2019, including about 370,000 women over 75.

Baby boomers have lower marriage rates and higher divorce rates than their parents, and more have remained childless.
The rise of so-called gray divorce, after age 50, also means fewer married seniors, and extended life spans can make for more years without surviving family.

In addition, seniors who are Black, female and have lower levels of wealth have particularly high rates of kinlessness.

A study of middle-aged and older adults in Canada found that those without partners or children (this study included no data on siblings) had lower levels of self-reported mental and physical health and higher levels of loneliness.

In Mount Lebanon, Pa., for instance, Celeste Seeman, who is divorced and childless and has lived alone for 25 years, has befriended neighbors in her apartment building. When one had surgery recently, Ms. Seeman, 65 and still working as an embroidery machine operator, walked the neighbor’s Chihuahuas, did her laundry and called her almost daily for weeks.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/03/health/elderly-living-alone.html