the need to encourage personal behavior that maximizes the potentials of the
human species. What kind of future does such thought portend?
THE FUTURE OF GERONTOLOGY
The agequake that faces America when the longer living boomers retire will
be a major factor influencing evolving social policies related to major as-
pects of life: health care, work, retirement, pensions, housing, and terminal
care. The future will likely bring an increasing appreciation of the diversity
of America's growing older population. The author served as the outside
examiner for a five-student master's degree research project of the Anderson
Graduate School at UCLA. A total of 33 national surveys were analyzed with
respect to the characteristics of the population with age. About six subgroups
of the mature population were identified. At one end were the ʻexplorers,ʻ
who had enough money and health and wanted to add new things to their
lives. Next were the ʻconservers,ʻ who had the same general characteris-
tics of the explorers but wanted to hold on to what they had, and not add.
At the other end of the distribution were the ʻmartyrs,ʻ who had relatively
poor lives but were ready to tell you about how bad life had treated them.
A subgroup of these has been described in other contexts as ʻtoxic agers.ʻ
These individuals are so bitter about their lives that they drive away those
who would assist them. Because the aged population is growing, all of these
groups will increase, challenging the institutions and professional groups
that would serve them to minimize negative influences and maximize the
positive. We can expect both late-life bloomers and early-life faders in our
changing population, but gerontology is expected to contribute to increas-
ing the numbers of late-life bloomers, increasing the quality of life, and de-
creasing the number of disabled and unproductive elderly who are unable to
maintain independent lives.
Yet in comparison with issues of aging in developing countries, those
of America appear to be less demanding. Demographic changes are coming
more quickly in developing countries. Asian countries, for example, are rap-
idly adding years to the lives of their inhabitants, but their cultures are based
on ancient customs that don't match well with current needs (Kumar, 2003;
Liebig & Rajan, 2003; Ramamurti & Jamuna, 2004). The less-developed re-
gions of the world have over 80% of the world's inhabitants. India and China
each have more that a billion people in their populations. The United States
has the third-largest population, with about 295 million. However, because
of its earlier increase in life expectancy and ethnic and cultural diversity,
rapid societal change has been a characteristic of America. Thus the country

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