I just got back from the nursing home after visiting my grandfather and I was struck by the large ratio of women to men in the nursing home. I visited him during lunch so most of the residents were sitting at the lunch room. There were 4 women to every one man and after thinking about it, it makes sense since women tend to outlive men.

I also started thinking about how many of the elderly in the nursing home don’t get many visitors. At least one family member visits my grandfather every day but the times I’ve been there, the residents stare at me in wonder as if it’s odd that a grandchild goes to visit a grandfather in the nursing home. The staff occasionally ask me if I’m the son or grandson while some of the other staff ask me which one of the many aunts or uncles that visit is my parent.

Given what I’m seeing at this place I started thinking about the geometric regression of descendants. Boomers parents on average had about 6 to 8 kids, while boomers on average had about 3 to 4 kids and today, generation X seems to have about 2 kids max. The reproduction rate cuts in half for each succeeding generation which means that if my grandfather has 4 visitors out of 6 kids he had (one died, one rarely visits) then boomers can expect, at best, only one or two visitors. Effectively, boomers that abandon their parents in nursing home will receive a worse fate as they won’t have visitors come by to cheer them up.

Oddly enough, I don’t think money has much of an impact except perhaps the level of nursing home a boomer gets to stay in during their final years.

I don’t know what will happen with Generation X but the way my kids are growing up, they’ll be home forever living pampered lives!