Demographics are changing rapidly and dramatically in the United States. People are living longer, but the ethnic composition of the senior age cohort is not the same as it is for the young. While the young generations are becoming more ethnically diverse by the minute, the older generation remains more proportionately white. This demographic shift is being referred to as the “gray and the brown,” with seniors and young brown segments of society having different values, needs, and expectations.
The implications of the grey and the brown phenomenon include changes to public policy, education, healthcare, and political culture in general. Generational differences have perennially affected the different voting patterns among seniors and young people. The differences are not just due to different ideas of how taxpayer funds should be allocated, but also to social norms and institutions. Older age cohorts were raised in a different generation with different values, attitudes, and beliefs about everything from drugs and same-sex marriage, to the structure and function of government. Young people will also have different attitudes and needs in terms of the job market and economic policy versus seniors, who may not understand completely the ramifications of the global market economy on their lives versus that of their grandchildren. Young people may care about retirement savings on an intellectual level but not on a visceral level as with seniors. Therefore, generation alone is a major issue impacting American politics and policy, with ancillary ramifications for human services professionals.

When ethnicity is also a factor thrown into the mix, human services professionals contend with intersectionality. The “brown” part of the gray and brown equation refers to non-white Americans, many of whom are Latin American, but many of whom are from other racial or ethnic backgrounds. As such, the “brown” community is also a diverse group with differential needs depending on culture of origin, socioeconomic class, and gender. Roughly the same can be said for the aging population, which is why human services professionals always need to consider intersections of identity, power, privilege, and affiliation, and to respect individual differences too.

The political institutions and public policies that are in place today impact that younger generation: a generation that is demographically different from the generation that passed many of those laws or supported those institutions. Furthermore, seniors continue to participate in the political process, sometimes with higher voter turnout rates than their younger counterparts. As a result, older people sometimes make the laws that younger people have to live with, and...…a new light.

Human services professionals have a responsibility to personalize the political issues in this way to help create harmony in the communities they serve. The private sector organizations that were started by whites who are now aging also need to contend with the younger, browner workforce. Organizations that respond by changing their organizational culture will thrive in the new era, adapting and responding to the changing demographic not just among their consumers but also among their employees. Until the young people of today do become leaders of tomorrow’s businesses, it will be critical to apply the tools of cultural sensitivity and cultural awareness, pushing back against backlash movements that stymie social progress and peace. It is possible that seniors feel threatened by young people and that whites feel threatened by people of color for upsetting the balance of power that had become entrenched in the society. It is also possible for seniors to see that the world as a whole has changed, and that collaboration and interdependence are the new normative standards in political culture and in social norms. Embracing the egalitarian norms of the future will resolve the tensions that do exist between various demographic cohorts in America.

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