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The Statistically Invisible Minority Aged

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Working Paper Number SEHSD-WP1988-01 or SIPP-WP-46

"The elderly" is a phrase commonly used to describe the 29 million people aged 65 and over. There has long been a tendency to use statistical averages for the total population 65 and over as if they were a homogeneous group. In recent years, however, data producers have begun to disaggregate the data to show more age detail and, not surprisingly, there are significant differences in a group that covers a 40-year age span. Circumstances can be very different for a 65-year-old married couple than they are for an 85-year-old-widow.

Even when age and gender differences are shown in tabulations, data from surveys tend to be analyzed for the total population, and not for the race or ethnicity groups within the older population. Because the White population is such a large part of the older population (90 percent in 1980), averages for the “total population" are really descriptions of the White population and thus, do not provide a complete view of the diversity within the older population for those who make policy. For example, the 1980 census reported that 15 percent of "the elderly" were poor; the poverty rate for White elderly was 13 percent but 35 percent for the Black elderly. And, from more detailed tabulations, we found that poverty rates varied from 7 percent for White males aged 65 to 74 who lived in families to 73 percent for Black females 85 and over who lived alone.

This paper will use the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to show some illustrative differentials within the older population for the various age, sex, and race groups. We argue here that overall averages used to describe the older population are misleading and that data producers should show age, sex, and race differentials in the data to the extent possible. Because of sample sizes in surveys, such detail has not usually been feasible and so we suggest several statistical approaches to the problem.

Page Last Revised - October 8, 2021
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