Senior Love

One of the first things that I noticed when I first moved here to Madrid was how many elderly couples walk hand-in-hand in the streets.

You see old sweethearts, helping one another strut along, holding hands as if they were newlyweds.

Sure, sometimes you see them arguing in overly loud voices so the other can hear with his/her hearing aid, but more than often, you just see them walking silently and seemingly happy together.

It's very endearing...and even though I have been living here for more than a year, it still makes me smile.


For some reason, I don't have the same image in the U.S. Why is that?



Well for starters, there are a lot of elderly people here in Spain. I looked up the census data: 24% of Spain's population is 60 years and older, compared to the 14% of United States. Take a look at these population pyramids for both countries in 2009. Everything above the black line is the population of 60+ years of age. When you see this in more visual terms, you can tell that Spain's population is much more aged than the United States.


I definitely notice the aging population here, much more than I ever did in my own country.

But perhaps I notice more elderly people here for another reason. Perhaps it is because the Spanish culture is much more "street-based". What I mean by this is people go out, they are social, and they are used to walking around on the street to handle their normal errands. In the U.S. people tend to travel by a more private transportation mode - their own car. Whereas in the U.S. the elderly might be driven in a car by a family member (if they no longer drive themselves), here the elderly will take the bus and the metro, talk to their other elderly friends in the main plaza, and maybe go to a small bar for some tapas.

I'm not sure how much convalescent homes has to do with this visibility, either. The United States is known for utilizing convalescent homes more than what is considered acceptable in other cultures, but I have been told more than once that in Spain there are quite a few "elderly residences" and that it isn't uncommon here.