Emptying the nest: Older men in the United States, 1880-2000

Population and Development Review

Volumn 36, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 331-356

  Gratton, Brian ^a   Gutmann, Myron P ^b  

^a ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CENSUS; DEMOGRAPHIC HISTORY; DEMOGRAPHIC TREND; FERTILITY; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; IMMIGRATION; MARRIAGE; POPULATION DECLINE; SOCIAL HISTORY; TWENTY FIRST CENTURY;

AGING; ARTICLE; CULTURAL FACTOR; DAILY LIFE ACTIVITY; ECONOMICS; EDUCATION; EMPLOYMENT; ETHNOLOGY; HISTORY; HUMAN; LEGAL ASPECT; LIFESTYLE; MALE; MARRIAGE; MEN'S HEALTH; PHYSIOLOGY; POPULATION DYNAMICS; POPULATION RESEARCH; PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECT; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIOECONOMICS; SPOUSE; UNITED STATES;

ACTIVITIES OF DAILY LIVING; AGING; CENSUSES; CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS; EMPLOYMENT; HISTORY, 19TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 20TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 21ST CENTURY; HUMANS; LIFE STYLE; MALE; MARRIAGE; MEN'S HEALTH; POPULATION DYNAMICS; SOCIAL CHANGE; SOCIOECONOMIC FACTORS; SPOUSES; UNITED STATES;

UNITED STATES;

EID: 77955023618     PISSN: 00987921     EISSN: 17284457     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1728-4457.2010.00332.x     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Achenbaum WA. Old Age in the New Land: the American Experience since 1790 1978, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press
2. Arias E, Curtin L R, Wei R, Anderson R N. United States Decennial life tables for 1999-2001, United States life tables. National Vital Statistics Reports 2008, vol 57(no. 1). Hyattsville, MD, National Center for Health Statistics
3. Beresford J C, Rivlin A M. Privacy, poverty, and old age. Demography 1966, 3(1):247-258.
4. Bethencourt C, Rios-Rull J V. On the living arrangements of elderly widows. International Economic Review 2009, 50(3):773-801.
5. Brady D S. Individual incomes and structure of consumer units. The American Economic Review 1958, 48(2):269-278.
6. Burgess E W. The Function of Socialization in Social Evolution 1916, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
7. Burr J A, Mutchler J E. Race and ethnic variation in norms of filial responsibility among older persons. Journal of Marriage and the Family 1999, 61(3):674-687.
8. Carliner G. Determinants of household headship. Journal of Marriage and the Family 1975, 37:28-38.
9. Chevan A, Korson J H. The widowed who live alone: An examination of social and demographic factors. Social Forces 1972, 51:45-53.
10. Choi N G. Living arrangements and household composition of elderly couples and singles: A comparison of Hispanics and blacks. Journal of Gerontological Social Work 1999, 31(1/2):41-61.
11. Chudacoff H P, Hareven T K. Family transitions into old age. Transitions: The Family and the Life Course in Historical Perspective 1978, 217-243. Hareven T K, New York, Academic Press.
12. Chudacoff H P, Hareven T K. From the empty nest to family dissolution: Life course transitions into old age." Journal of Family History 1979, 4(1):69-83.
13. Corson J J, McConnell J W. Economic Needs of Older People 1956, New York, Twentieth Century Fund
14. Costa D L. Agricultural decline and the secular rise in male retirement rates. Explorations in Economic History 1995, 32:540-552.
15. Costa D L. Displacing the family: Union Army pensions and elderly living arrangements. Journal of Political Economy 1997, 105(6):1269-1292.
16. Costa D L. A house of her own: Old age assistance and the living arrangements of older nonmarried women." Journal of Public Economics 1999, 72:39-59.
17. Crimmins E, Ingegneri D. Interaction and living arrangements of older parents and their children. Research on Aging 1990, 12(1):3-35.
18. Dillon L, Gratton B, Moen J. Retirement at the turn of the twentieth century: A Canadian perspective. Canadian Historical Review 2010, 91(1):27-59.
19. Fischer D H. Growing Old in America 1977, New York, Oxford University Press
20. Giuliano P. Living arrangements in western Europe: Does cultural origin matter?. Journal of European Economic Association 2007, 5(5):927-952.
21. Glick P C. Updating the life cycle of the family. Journal of Marriage and the Family 1977, 39(1):5-13.
22. Glick P C, Parke R, New approaches in studying the life cycle of the family. Demography 1965, 2:187-202.
23. Goode W J. World Revolution and Family Patterns 1963, Glencoe, Free Press
24. Gratton B. The new history of the aged: A critique. Old Age in a Bureaucratic Society: The Elderly, the Experts, and the State in American History 1986, 3-29. Van Tassel DStearns P N. New York, Greenwood.
25. Gutmann M P, Pullum-Piñón S, Pullum T W. Three eras of young adult home leaving in twentieth-century America. Journal of Social History 2002, 35:533-576.
26. Haber C. Beyond Sixty-Five: The Dilemma of Old Age in America's Past 1983, New York, Cambridge University Press
27. Haber C, Gratton B. Old Age and the Search for Security: An American Social History 1994, Bloomington, Indiana University Press
28. Haines M R. Fertility and mortality, by race: 1800-2000," Table Ab1-10; " Population, by race, sex, and urban-rural residence: 1880-1990," Table Aa716-775. Historical Statistics of the United States, Earliest Times to the Present: Millennial Edition 2006, Carter S BGartner S SHaines M ROlmstead A LSutch RWright G. New York, Cambridge University Press
29. Hareven T K. The history of the family and the complexity of social change. American Historical Review 1991, 96(1):95-124.
30. Hareven T K. Aging and generational relations: A historical and life course perspective. Annual Review of Sociology 1994, 20:437-461.
31. Hareven T K. Introduction: Aging and generational relations over the life course. Aging and Generational Relations over the Life Course: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective 1996, 1-12. Hareven T K. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter.
32. Heuser R L. Fertility Tables for Birth Cohorts by Color: United States 1917-73. DHEW Publication No. (HRA)76-1152 1976, http://opr.princeton.edu/archive/cpft/, Rockville, National Center for Health Statistics, Available online from the Office of Population Research at Princeton University, accessed November 30, 2009
33. Johnston L D, Williamson S H. What was the U.S. GDP then?: MeasuringWorth. 2008, http://www.measuringworth.org/usgdp/, available online at, accessed March 15, 2010
34. Keilman N. Recent trends in family and household composition in Europe. European Journal of Population 1988, 3(3-4):297-325.
35. Kertzer D. Toward a historical demography of aging. Aging in the Past: Demography, Society, and Old Age 1995, 363-385. Kertzer DLaslett P. Berkeley, University of California Press.
36. Kobrin F. The fall of household size and the rise of the primary individual in the U.S. Demography 1976, 13(1):127-138.
37. Kramarow E. The elderly who live alone in the United States: Historical perspectives on household change. Demography 1995, 32(3):335-352.
38. Laslett P, Wall R. Household and Family in Past Time 1972, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
39. Levy M. Aspects of the analysis of family structure. Aspects of the Analysis of Family Structure 1965, 1-63. Coale A J. Princeton, Princeton University Press.
40. McGarry K, Schoeni R S. Social security, economic growth, and the rise in elderly widows' independence in the twentieth century. Demography 2000, 37(2):221-236.
41. Michael R, Fuchs V, Scott S. Changes in the propensity to live alone: 1950-1976. Demography 1980, 17(1):39-58.
42. Murphy M, Grundy E. Co-residence of generations and household structure in Britain: Aspects of change in the 1980s. Solidarity of Generations, Demographic, Economic and Social Change and Its Consequences 1994, 551-582. Becker H A, Hermkens P L J. Amsterdam, Thesis Publishers.
43. Ogburn W E. The family and its functions. Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President's Research Committee on Social Trends 1933, 661-708. Mitchell W C. New York, McGraw Hill.
44. Palloni A. Living arrangements of older persons. Population Bulletin of the United Nations 2000, 42(43):54-110. Special Issue
45. Pampel F C. Social Change and the Aged: Recent Trends in the U.S 1981, Lexington, Lexington Books
46. Pampel F C. Changes in the propensity to live alone: Evidence from consecutive cross-sectional surveys. Demography 1983, 20(4):433-447.
47. Parsons T. The social structure of the family. The Family: Its Function and Destiny 1949, 173-201. Ashen R N. New York, Harper.
48. Ruggles S. The transformation of American family structure. American Historical Review 1994, 99(1):103-128.
49. Ruggles S. Living arrangements of the elderly in America, 1880-1980. Aging and Generational Relations Over the Life Course: A Historical and Cross-Cultural Perspective 1996, 254-271. Hareven T K. Berlin, Walter de Gruyter.
50. Ruggles S. Multigenerational families in nineteenth-century America. Continuity and Change 2003, 18:139-165.
51. Ruggles S. The decline of intergenerational coresidence in the United States, 1850-2000. American Sociological Review 2007, 72:964-989.
52. Ruggles S. Reconsidering the Northwest European family system: Living arrangements of the aged in comparative historical perspective. Population and Development Review 2009, 35(2):249-273.
53. Ruggles S. Integrated Public Use Microdata Series: Version 3.0 [Machine-readable database] 2004, http://www.ipums.org, Minneapolis, MN, Minnesota Population Center, producer and distributor]. Available online at
54. Ryder N B. Observations on the history of cohort fertility in the United States. Population and Development Review 1986, 12(4):617-643.
55. Schorr A. Filial Responsibility in the Modern American Family 1960, Washington, DC, US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare
56. Frédéric Le Play on Family, Work, and Social Change 1982, Silver C B. Chicago, University of Chicago Press
57. Smith D S. Life course, norms, and the family system of older Americans in 1900. Journal of Family History 1979, 4(3):285-298.
58. Smith D S. Accounting for change in the families of the elderly in the United States, 1900-present. Old Age in a Bureaucratic Society: The Elderly, the Experts, and the State in American History 1986, 87-109. Van Tassel DStearns P N. New York, Greenwood.
59. Sobek M. New statistics on the U.S. labor force, 1850-1990. Historical Methods 34(2):71-87.
60. Thornton A. Reading History Sideways: The Fallacy and Enduring Impact of the Developmental Paradigm on Family Life 2005, Chicago, University of Chicago Press
61. Treas J. Family support systems for the aged: Some social and demographic considerations. The Gerontologist 1977, 17(6):486-491.
62. Treas J, Bengston V L. The demography of mid- and late-life transitions. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 1982, 464:11-21.
63. Uhlenberg P R. A study of cohort life cycles: Cohorts of native born Massachusetts women, 1830-1920. Population Studies 1969, 23(3):407-420.
64. Uhlenberg P R. Changing configurations of the life course. Transitions: The Family and the Life Course in Historical Perspective 1978, 65-97. Hareven T K. New York, Academic Press.
65. Summary File 1, Table GCT-P1; Summary File 3, Table GCT-P13. 2000, http://factfinder.census.gov, US Census Bureau., Available online at, accessed March 15, 2010
66. Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplements, Table P-8. Age-People, All Races, by Median Income and Sex: 1947 to 2005." 2007, http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/p08ar.html, US Census Bureau., Available online at, accessed May 4, 2009
67. Wall R. Residential isolation of the elderly: A comparison over time. Ageing and Society 1984, 4(4):483-503.
68. Wall R. Living arrangements of the elderly in contemporary Europe. Later Phases of the Family Life Cycle 1989, 222-244. Grebenik EHohn CMackensen R.Oxford, Clarendon.
69. Wall R. The residence patterns of elderly English women in comparative perspective. Women and Ageing in British Society since 1500 2001, 139-165. London, Longman.
70. Wall R. Elderly widows and widowers and their coresidents in late 19th- and early 20th-century England and Wales. History of the Family 2002, 7:139-155.
71. Wilmoth J R. Living arrangements among older immigrants in the United States. The Gerontologist 2001, 41:228-238.
72. Young H, Grundy E. Living arrangements, health and well-being. Fertility, Living Arrangements, Care and Mobility 2009, 127-150. Stillwell J, Coast EKneale D. Dordrecht, Springer.
73. Zhou M. Growing up American: The challenge confronting immigrant children and children of immigrants. Annual Review of Sociology 1997, 23:63-95.