Residential care in the United States

The United States is “an aging nation” according to the US Census Bureau, the federal agency charged with collecting data on US population dynamics. ¹ This growth in the older adult population is due to the advent of the so-called “Baby Boomers” (the large numbers of children born following the end of World War II to the early 1960s), increasing average lifespan (including strong growth in the over-85 population) and decreasing birthrates from the mid-1960s on. The significant growth in the population approaching or beyond the traditional retirement age in the US (age 65), and those 85 and older, have brought on changing conceptions of aging and appropriate settings for the elderly in need of long-term care. ² The result is an evolving and increasingly diverse residential care sector. ³