New School Year, New Leadership at UMass Boston Gerontology Program

Posted on September 7, 2021 by stevensyre

Gerontology students at the University of Massachusetts Boston are returning to school, greeted by some familiar faces in new leadership roles.

Professor Edward Alan Miller is the new chair of the UMass Boston Gerontology Department, succeeding professor Jeffrey Burr. Professor Jan Mutchler has become the new director of the Gerontology Institute, taking over for the retiring Len Fishman.

Professor Kathrin Boerner is the new Graduate Program Director for the PhD Program in Gerontology and the MS in Gerontology Research/Policy, a position Miller had held for eight years.

Edward Alan Miller

Miller is beginning his role as department chair by welcoming about 50 PhD students and more than 100 master’s and certificate students in the Management of Aging Services program to a new school year. Six new PhD students in the program come to UMass Boston from Ghana, Kenya, China, South Korea, California and New Hampshire.

“I’m honored that my colleagues chose me as the new chair of the Gerontology Department,” said Miller. “I’m excited by the opportunity to further elevate UMass Boston as a leading institution addressing the challenges and opportunities posed by an aging population.” Continue reading →

Gender and Money in Later Life: How Older Women Face Greater Economic Insecurity than Men

Posted on August 19, 2021 by stevensyre

Most older women spent their working lives behind the economic curve. They were typically paid less than men when at work and more likely to provide family care that reduced employment opportunities.

Their economic situation doesn’t improve in later life. Lower Social Security and pension benefits, the result of working and earning less over decades, and the fact that women are more likely to live longer than men just extend that gender disadvantage into older age and often make it worse.

A new report by the Gerontology Institute at the University of Massachusetts Boston uses the Elder Index™to demonstrate the depth and scope of economic disadvantage experienced by older women living alone across the United States. It is documented in every state in the nation and only increases with age.

“Life-long patterns of inequality in work experiences and wealth accumulation are behind a substantial gender disparity in retirement economic security,” said Jan Mutchler, the report’s lead author and a professor of gerontology at UMass Boston. “The consequences of that disparity affect so many older women who routinely face hard choices about basic expenses they simply can’t afford.” Continue reading →

Elder Index at Work: Helping Boston’s Age-Friendly Plan Take Aim at Economic Insecurity

Posted on March 25, 2021 by stevensyre

This article is one in a series of stories about how people across the country are using the Elder Index to understand the true cost of living for older adults and its economic implications. If you know someone who would like to receive information about these stories, send us a note at gerontologyinstitute@umb.edu.

Go to any city across America and you will find older adults struggling to make ends meet. Go to Boston and you will see some of the most serious elder economic insecurity problems in the nation.

This is not news at Boston’s Age Strong Commission, which first launched an ambitious age-friendly plan in 2017. The commission is now developing a Step 2 blueprint with a focus on the problem of economic security among older residents. A critical tool for that job: The Elder Index. Continue reading →

New Report Ranks Elder Economic Insecurity in 100 Largest U.S. Metro Areas

Posted on March 12, 2021 by stevensyre

Jan Mutchler Older adults in every one of America’s large metropolitan areas face serious challenges affording their local cost of living. But the scale of economic insecurity varies dramatically, depending on what city those older adults call home.

A new report by University of Massachusetts Boston professor Jan Mutchler and graduate assistant Yang Li uses the Elder Index™ to analyze the cost of a no-frills elder budget in each of the nation’s 384 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs), where 83 percent of older Americans live. They also tracked income levels of older adults in the 100 largest metro areas to determine what percentage of elders in those cities had insufficient income to afford their local cost of living without help.

They found a wide range of elder economic insecurity levels among both older individuals and couples living in the larger metro areas. More than 67 percent of older individuals in the Texas metro area covering McAllen, Edinburg and Mission did not have enough income to meet local expenses on their own, the highest rate among the 100 largest MSAs. Continue reading →

Boston’s Older Population: Increasing in Racial Diversity, but Quality of Life is Shaped by Racism, Discrimination

Posted on February 18, 2021 by maria.iacobo

A new report from UMass Boston identifies aging equity among Boston residents

The number of Boston residents aged 60 and older has increased by more than one-third in the last eight years and more than half of older residents are persons of color. However the experiences of these older residents differ substantially depending on race, ethnicity and gender, and challenges their abilities to thrive.

A new report, “Aging Strong for All: Examining Aging Equity in the City of Boston,” by researchers at the University of Massachusetts Boston, documents disparities across three dimensions that impact quality of life — economic security, health, social engagement — and identifies opportunities for stakeholders to ensure an environment in which “aging strong” is possible for all Boston residents.

“It has never been more critical to strategically pursue greater equity in the aging experience of Boston residents,” says Jan Mutchler, PhD, director of the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging at UMass Boston, a professor in the Department of Gerontology and one of the study’s authors. “The numbers of older adults are increasing and stakeholders share a growing recognition of the powerful ways in which inequity, racism, and discrimination shape health outcomes and the aging experience, amplifying the need to examine and remediate disparities in aging.”

The report identifies substantial disparities across racial and ethnic groups, such as:

Economic security

Poverty rates are especially high among Asian Americans and Latinos, and more than one-third of these residents age 60 or older live in households with incomes below the federal poverty line.
Sizable gaps differentiate racial groups. For example, while a similar share of non-Hispanic White, Black and Native American people aged 66 or older receive Social Security benefits, percentages receiving Social Security are considerably lower for Latinos and Asian Americans.
Housing costs in Boston place a heavy burden on older residents and half or more of renters age 60 or older pay more than 30% of their incomes for housing. Fewer homeowners bear such a heavy cost burden for housing, but older Black, Latino and Native American homeowners are at amplified risk for being cost-burdened.

Continue reading →

Nearly Two-Thirds of Older Black Americans Can’t Afford to Live Alone Without Help – and it’s Even Tougher for Latinos

Posted on November 17, 2020 by stevensyre

This article originally appeared on The Conversation, a non-profit independent online news organization.

By Jan Mutchler

Older Americans who want to live independently face serious economic challenges. Half who live alone don’t have enough income to afford even a bare-bones budget in their home communities, and nearly 1 in 4 couples face the same problem.

Those numbers add up to at least 11 million older adults who are struggling to make ends meet, a new analysis shows.

The numbers are worse for older people of color. Dramatically higher percentages of Black, Latino and Asian older adults live on incomes that don’t meet their cost of living, even with Social Security. That can mean skipping needed health care, not having enough food, living in unhealthy conditions or having to move in with family.

These disparities often reflect lifelong disadvantages that add up as people of color encounter structural racism and discrimination that shape their ability to buy property and save for the future.

To calculate realistic rates of economic insecurity and estimate the disparities, my colleagues and I used the Elder Index, created by the University of Massachusetts Boston to measure the true cost of living for older adults. It tracks expenses for housing, health care, transportation, food and other basics, county by county. We paired the index with state-level income data to determine the percentage of people who don’t have enough income to cover their cost of living. Continue reading →

UMB Gerontologists Tell Legislators Research, Preparation Keys to Helping Older Adults Deal with Impact of COVID-19

Posted on May 19, 2020 by stevensyre

Len Fishman, Elizabeth Dugan and Jan Murtchler

Left to right, Gerontology Institute Director Len Fishman, associate professor Elizabeth Dugan and professor Jan Mutchler. Fishman, Dugan and Mutchler appear in photos below.

UMass Boston gerontologists offered legislators two suggestions for state government in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic: Help researchers better understand what has happened to older adults and get elder Massachusetts residents prepared for a more challenging future.

Gerontology Institute Director Len Fishman, associate professor Elizabeth Dugan and professor Jan Mutchler all appeared individually at a May 15 virtual listening session hosted by the legislature’s Joint Committee on Elder Affairs. They joined a wide range of advocates, policymakers and other members of the public to describe the impact the pandemic has had on older adults and what state government should do to help. Continue reading →

Turning Gray and into the Red: The True Cost of Growing Old in America

Posted on December 9, 2019 by stevensyre

This article originally appeared in The Conversation, an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.

The U.S. population is aging at such a rate that within a few years, older Americans will outnumber the country’s children for the first time, according to census projections. But rising rents, health care and other living costs mean that for many entering their retirement years, balancing the household budget can be a struggle.

To get a better understanding of how much of a struggle, a team at the University of Massachusetts Boston established a benchmark against which to measure the financial security of Americans aged 65 and over. Jan Mutchler is Professor of Gerontology and Director of the Center for Social and Demographic Research on Aging in the Gerontology Institute at UMass. Continue reading →

Gerontology Institute Report Finds High Levels of Elder Economic Insecurity in Massachusetts

Posted on November 19, 2019 by stevensyre

Massachusetts is home to the nation’s highest percentage of older adults living alone who are unable to afford basic necessities without extra assistance, according to new research from UMass Boston’s Gerontology Institute.

About 62 percent of adults age 65 and older in Massachusetts are unable to afford the cost of a no-frills lifestyle that pays for basics such as food, housing, health care and transportation, according to a new report, Insecurity in the States 2019.

About 35 percent of Massachusetts elder couples living in two-person households are unable to afford their basic cost of living without assistance, the third highest rate in the nation, the report found. Only Vermont and New York had higher rates for older couples living independently. Continue reading →

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