Transitions of Aging

The Transitions is a study of non-communicable diseases and aging, across generations. The way generations have aged since the nineteenth century was influenced by the economic, epidemiologic and political milieus they received as children. This long reach of childhood development, in turn, sheds light on an issue critical to our time: Does aging crimp or boost healthcare spending? Is cost containment that seeks to rein-in healthcare spending a free lunch? Can it be socially optimal? Under what conditions? Woven together in the book are strands of research in biodemography, health economics, economic history, epidemiology, public health history, some political history, and macroeconomics. Together they help resolve the paradox at the heart of population aging: how to reconcile the fact that non-communicable diseases climb exponentially as people age, yet, when one looks at the macro picture, the aggregate rate of such diseases has trended down for at least a century as the population was aging more than ever before. The reconciliation of those two facts leads to the discovery of some vital clues about how long-term wellbeing has advanced, and the channels through which political and institutional change in the nineteenth century has helped sway modern aging, and healthcare spending.§