Life expectancy has grown and so has the percent of older adults living alone. Despite the oft-repeated life expectancy at birth of 79, the older population is living longer. At age 65, both women and men will likely live on average another 20 years. Thirty-six percent of those aged 75+ live alone. Nearly in 10 have notable health issues, including vision or hearing loss, or other difficulties with living independently.
Self-sufficiency of older adults has grown – for some. One-third of older adults will live past the age of 75. One-third are not physically active. But they were already inactive years early when they were in their 50s. Also correlated -- inactivity level went down as education level went up. Conversely, less physical activity also correlated with disabilities in later life.
More are living alone – but needing more costly care help. A small percent (5% or less) live in either nursing homes or assisted living. The rest may use either unpaid family help or paid home care (29%) at some point. Beyond the health statistics, the cost of care is growing. By May 2026, home care prices went up by 7.9 percent on average, more than the growth in the cost of food and housing. Nursing home care prices went up by 5% -- and median assisted living costs, now $70,800 per year, rose 46% since 2019.
The Age Tech market sector appears to be growing – including personal wellness tech. Funding trends appear to be positive, and the sector includes the market of technologies for high dependency settings (like home care and senior living.) As with Inspiren and others, AI is increasingly going to be used for monitoring, trend analysis, managing predictive risk and mitigating health issues. With the vast majority of older adults (as many as 98%) using smart phones, we should expect, hope for, more health apps, check-in apps and even apps to encourage activity and movement – especially among the majority living alone. Most will be AI-enabled – and very soon we won’t even notice or mention it.
