Changing Age Segregation in the US: 1990 to 2010

Abstract

Age segregation adversely impacts health and wellbeing. Prior studies, although limited, report increasing age segregation of the US. However, these studies are dated, do not comprehensively examine the spatiotemporal patterns and the correlates of intergenerational segregation, or suffer from methodological limitations. To address these gaps, we assess the spatiotemporal patterns of age segregation between 1990 and 2010 using census-tract data to compute the dissimilarity index ( D) at the national, state, and county levels. Results contradict previous findings, providing robust evidence of decreasing age segregation for most parts of the country and across geographical levels. We also examine factors explaining adult-older adult segregation across counties between 1990 and 2010. Higher levels of rurality indicated lower levels of adult-older adult segregation, but this association diminished over time. Percent of older adults and percent of population in group quarters were inversely related to adult-older adult segregation, contrary to results from previous decades.