UF, FSU Researchers: Aging Baby Boomers Top Florida’s Megatrends

May 29, 2002

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — “Old Folks at Home” may come to mean more than the title of Florida’s state song as the huge and aging baby boom generation exerts pressure on social services and politics, two of the state’s foremost political observers write in a new book.

Unlike the sentimental tribute in Stephen Foster’s lyrics, these old folks comprise an “age wave” expected to wash across Florida in the next three decades, with their infirmities forcing state government to help them and their sheer numbers dominating politics even more than today’s powerful retirees, UF Provost David Colburn writes in “Florida’s Megatrends.” Colburn, who also is a professor of history, co-authored the book with Lance deHaven-Smith, a professor of public policy at Florida State University. The book, which analyzes future state trends, was published this month by University Press of Florida.

In addition to the demands caused by its burgeoning elderly population, the state will be strained socially and economically by rapidly growing numbers of school-age youths, continued urban sprawl and greater ethnic and racial diversity, the authors predict.

“Florida will see its senior population virtually explode after 2010 with the retirement of the baby boom generation,” Colburn said. “By 2025, as many as 22 of the state’s 67 counties are expected to have senior populations larger than 30 percent.”

These retirees will not reside in Florida only during their healthy years, as in the past when they lived in the state for the first 10 to 15 years of retirement then moved back to home states to be with their children as they reached their mid-70s and became increasingly frail, he said.

With their children now in Florida, many retirees are choosing to remain in the Sunshine State well beyond their 75^thyear, Colburn said.

“As more seniors stay here into their 80s and 90s and are joined by baby boomers, they will place extraordinary demands on state services and facilities,” he said. “The only way Florida can support a substantial senior population without going broke is to develop services and support systems that allow retirees to live independently for as long as possible.”

Having large numbers of senior citizens live well into their frail years is unprecedented, Colburn said. ”There are literally no societies in the world that have had people living two and three decades after they’ve retired,” he said.

By sheer numbers, these retirees will become the single most influential group in state politics, shaping the political agenda and candidates’ platforms at all levels of government, he said.

“At the local level, they will have the ability to decide most elections,” he said. “In a number of Florida communities, the senior population already constitutes as much as a third, and in some cases 40 percent, of the vote.”

More progressive than their parents in their political and social values, baby boomers are likely to support programs that protect the environment, enhance education and strengthen health-care systems, Colburn said. Since many are college graduates themselves, they may even be willing to pay more for schools, especially if they have grandchildren in Florida, he said.

The authors also detail difficulties political leaders face in governing a state that suffers what they call an “identity crisis” because of its diversity. While most states have one or two metropolitan areas that dominate politics, Florida has a dozen such regions, each with its own political identity.

“If I say ‘Florida,’ some people think of Disney World, others of sport fishing and still others of beaches, the Everglades, football, Cubans, cowboys or retirees,” said deHaven-Smith, the book’s co-author. “We can’t agree on whether Florida should be preserved or developed, whether the emphasis should be on senior citizens or our children, or whether the state’s biggest problem is traffic, crime, poverty or pollution.”

Other trends the authors predict:

• Growth will remain the dominant feature of life in Florida for most of the 21^stcentury, but the pace should ease allowing the state to feel less like a boomtown with a boomtown mentality.
• Urban sprawl will continue, however, causing further environmental degradation.
• Changes in the tax structure are unlikely because low taxes are part of Florida’s appeal and one of the main reasons people move here. The exception would be if Florida faces a crisis in its education system or in the ability of local government to meet the needs of retirees.
• The growing ethnic and racial diversity in Florida when combined with an aging population that is largely white threatens to polarize the state politically. The state’s policy leaders will have to be particularly skillful to avoid fragmentation and hostility between young and old and between ethnic and racial minorities and whites, Colburn said.
• As a proportion of the population, Florida’s children and youth group is the second largest nationally and likely to place tremendous demands on the state’s education system.
• ”The greatest challenge for Florida in the coming decades will be developing the political will to respond to mounting environmental, economic and social pressures,” he said.