ABSTRACT
The graying “baby boom” generation, armed with improved health awareness and care, assures that the number of elderly individuals in the United States will continue to increase well into the 21st century. “In 1989, persons 65 years of age and older numbered 31 million, representing 12.5 percent of the total population. Since 1980, the number of older Americans has increased by 5.3 million, or 21 percent. By the year 2030, an estimated 66 million persons will be over age 65, representing 21.8 percent of the total population” (Weith, 1994, p. 24). By virtue of this rapid growth in the numbers of elderly persons, and the size of the elderly population, their impact on public policy is likely to be considerable. The concerns of the elderly will need to be addressed, both empirically and practically. Moreover, individual differences within this population also need to be appreciated as the elderly are not a homogeneous group (Hooyman and Kiyak, 1993). As an interpretive technique which seeks to describe and otherwise come to terms with the meaning of more or less naturally occurring phenomena in the social world, phenomenology is an appropriate tool for discovering the heterogeneity of the elderly population.
