Can You Fit 100 Candles On A Cake? - number of centenarians to increase - Brief Article

USA Today (Society for the Advancement of Education), Jan, 2001

The mystique of living to be 100 will be lost by the year 2020 as 100th birthdays become commonplace, predicts Mike Parker, assistant professor of social work, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, and a gerontologist specializing in successful aging. He says that, in the 21st century, the fastest growing age group in the country will be centenarians--those who live 100 years or longer.

"Our country is experiencing what. has been called a `triumph of survivorship,'" he notes. "At the turn of the [20th] century, only one in 500 could expect to live to be 100. Among the baby boomers, one in 26 can anticipate reaching 100 or more years of age. By the year 2020, the combination of new insights about the genetics of aging and the effects of a healthy lifestyle may contribute to the capacity of humans to live beyond 120 years, which is generally considered to be the maximum age span for humans today."

Parker suggests that this life-span extension will impact on Social Security and family structure. "In the future, our centenarian population will probably be healthier than the long-term health of Social Security. Deficits could begin to surface by 2015, and the reserves could be depleted by 2035. By the year 2020, the traditional [nuclear] family size will be smaller, and most families will have moved from a three- to a four-generational family structure. Younger generations will have great-grandparents and grandparents alive at the same time because people are living longer."