Alan Pifer and Lydia Bronte, Editors

Our Aging Society

In the decades to come, there will be fewer children and greatly increased numbers of elderly. Every aspect of American life will be affected. Will we have a better society or a worse one? It depends on us.

This landmark volume emanates from the Aging Society project, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In sounding the alarm about the population challenges we face in the next five decades, the essays here—written by a wide variety of experts—offer constructive proposals for meeting these challeges on both personal and public policy levels.

"Says it loud and true: The aging of American is THE problem of the rest of our lives, and the rest of the lives of our children." —Joseph A. Califano Jr.

"The future often announces itself from afar. But who listens? Here's a book about an aspect of our future that's going to change this country in a thousand ways." —John W. Gardner

"An invaluable study . . . wide-ranging, thoroughly documented, challenging . . . accessible." —Elizabeth Janeway

"This vision of a long-lived population raises astonishing possibilities for human life and human evolution that we have not even begun to explore. How creatively we respnd may determine our future as a species." —Dr. Jonas Salk

"An important volume that will help the public understand an extraordinary demographic revolution." —Robert N. Butler, M.D.

"The vast change in the nation's population balance—with people over sixty constituting an impressive portion of the whole—is generally portrayed as a problem. But the basic thrust of this book is that every aspect of American life can actually be strengthened by our 'aging citizens.' The conversion of an ordeal into a realistic design for the future is the signal achievement of this book." —Norman Cousins