Senior citizens: a new force in community service.

• Author: Freedman, Marc

The baby boom generation approaches retirement and life expectancy continues to increase, the U.S. finds itself in the midst of a demographic revolution. The senior population is twice what it was in 1960 and is expected to double again over the next 30 years. By the middle of the 21st century, seniors will outnumber children and youth for the first time. Few other changes are likely to exert as great an influence on society in die coming decades.

For the most part, the aging of American society is portrayed as a source of impending strife, with new strains on families, social services, and intergenerational relations. While this transformation presents real challenges, it brings new opportunities as well. The U.S. today possesses not only the fastest growing, but the largest, best-educated, and most vigorous collection of older adults in its history. In fact, the senior population may represent the country's sole increasing natural resource.

How might the productive and humanitarian potential of this resource be harnessed at a juncture when unmet needs in education, health care, public safety, the environment, and other essential areas are extensive and urgent? National service offers a particularly appealing vehicle for engaging seniors to respond to pressing needs. Many older Americans are in a position to make the major life commitment - ranging from half- to full-time work for at least one year - that defines national service.

The rationale for senior participation in national service centers on three overlapping and complementary objectives: alleviating the country's pressing domestic problems; enhancing the personal development of participants, and bolstering the nation's flagging sense of community.

In the context of America's considerable unmet needs, seniors represent hope not only because they are numerous, but because they are potentially available. Increased longevity and early retirement means they are spending a greater proportion of their lives in post-retirement - for many, one-third of their lives. Studies show that retirement frees substantial amounts of time - an average of 25 hours per week for men and 18 hours for women - and that most is spent either watching television or doing housework.

There also are indications that older adults are looking for opportunities to serve. A study sponsored by the U.S. Administration on Aging found that 14,000,000 Americans over the age of 65 (37.4% of the senior population) might be willing to come forward if asked, while 4,000,000 current volunteers indicate they would like to give more time. Forty percent. of those surveyed say the government should be doing more to promote service opportunities.

Older adults may be particularly appropriate for national service assignments. They are experienced workers, family members, and citizens, among other things, and therefore are a rich repository of the social capital required by young people to make the transition to adulthood. Studies of older workers and volunteers further suggest that seniors bring reliability, dependability, and discipline to responsible assignments.

For many, retirement means a jarring transition from engagement to disengagement, from productivity to idleness. Fifty-five percent of elder respondents to a Louis Hanis Poll lamented the loss of usefulness after retirement. Isolation and lack of purpose have been shown to increase seniors' risk of deterioration, illness, and death. Conversely, productive engagement and strong social networks contribute to prolonged mental and physical health. A 25-year National Institute of Mental Health study found, for example, that "highly organized" activity is the single strongest predictor, other than not smoking, of longevity and vitality.

Service provides opportunities for engagement, activity, acquaintanceship, and growth. According to sociologist Erik Erikson, service can meet a deeper need as well, satisfying the impulse toward generativity - the instinctual drive to pass on to the next generation what an individual has learned from life. The final challenge of life, he maintains, involves coming to terms with the notion, "l am what survives of me."

In the 1980s, Americans began hearing about the prospect of coming generational conflict, sparked by the contention that seniors were depriving the country's children and youth of their fair share in a political process dominated by elder interests. This argument usually is overstated, but there can be no doubt that, in a society divided by class, race, and sex, tensions between the generations exist as well. In the absence of cross-generational contact and engagement, these...