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Steven N Austad, Retirement Age Then and Now: A Biologist’s Perspective, Public Policy & Aging Report, Volume 34, Issue 4, 2024, Pages 125–128, https://doi.org/10.1093/ppar/prae021
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Extract
The National Institute on Aging (NIA) was officially established in October 1974 as a consequence of the Research on Aging Act (Public Law 93-296) passed earlier that same year. Its official purpose was (and remains) the “conduct and support of biomedical, social, and behavioral research and training related to the aging process and the diseases and other special problems and needs of the aged,” although today we would say “older adults” rather than “the aged.” This year, we are celebrating 50 years of the NIA’s existence, which makes this a convenient time to ask the question, “what has changed for older adults between 1974 and now?”
“Now,” for the purposes of this article will mean 2019 rather than 2024, both because 2019 census data are available whereas 2024 data are not and also because it is the last available year in which United States mortality data are not influenced by the large but apparently temporary demographic impact of COVID-19 deaths. That impact saw life expectancy at birth in the United States fall by 2.4 years between 2019 and 2021, the largest drop in life expectancy since the 1918 influenza pandemic caused an almost 12-year drop (Noymer & Garenne, 2000). Like the 1918 pandemic, demographic recovery from COVID-19 appears to be relatively quick. By 2022, the latest year census data are available, about half of the COVID life expectancy decrease had been recovered, so life expectancy in 2024 should likely have recovered to its prepandemic level (Arias et al., 2023).