The old to extremely old ratio

There's a proposal to reexamine the health care of the elderly, and not so elderly. It used to be that there were a lot of people in their 50s and 60s to help care for those in their 80s and 90s. For instance, my parents were in their 50s when my mother's parents died, and 70s when my father's died. They were there for errands to the doctor, taking in food, helping with home chores, taking them to church, supervising medications, and visiting them for companionship. And they had brothers and sisters, cousins, nieces, nephews and grandchildren also available. People today are living longer (although in my family we always had people living into at least their 80s it seems in every generation), having children later or none at all, and when they do have families, they are smaller. This will have an impact as the boomers age.

"They estimate that in Switzerland, the oldest old support ratio has fallen from 139.7 in 1890 to 13.4 in 2003. They predict that these oldest old support ratios will decrease to 3.5 in Switzerland and 4.1 in the US by 2050." Seen at Medscape.com