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Environmental Change and the Elderly

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Human Behavior and Environment

Abstract

Projections of future events may have become more frequent simply because a new century is approaching. Or, quite possibly, the incidence of such projections has increased because the technology for making them has proliferated and improved. Whatever the reason may be, one such set of projections was recently undertaken and presented by a group of scholars interested in the problems of aging (Neugarten, 1975). As background for the more sophisticated projections, one estimate predicted that in the year 2000 over 35 million people in the United States would be 65 years of age or over, in contrast to about 22 million at the time of this writing. The magnitude of this increase in the United States in the aged population is, to say the least, impressive. On a worldwide basis, the figures are even more impressive. And yet, as Beattie has pointed out, a number of significant futuristic studies have for all intents and purposes ignored or have omitted consideration of the elderly segment of the population (Beattie, 1975).

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© 1976 Plenum Press, New York

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Schooler, K.K. (1976). Environmental Change and the Elderly. In: Altman, I., Wohlwill, J.F. (eds) Human Behavior and Environment. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2550-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2550-5_7

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4684-2552-9

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