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But readers may want to consider his stories with a "grain of salt," realizing that the author has pieced together several episodes from his journalistic career to weave it into a book. Then, to help it sell, he plays on people's fears.
Keeping that in mind, readers may find some interesting observations.
Here is an example of how Fishman's particular studies have led him to make general conclusions. The first section of the book covers life in Sarasota, Florida, a place where many people go to retire. Fishman is proposing that Sarasota today is how many American communities will look in the future, because of changing demographics. But this is only his hypothesis. He does not make clear that Sarasota may not be indicative of other cities, in fact, may be an "outlier" on a distribution of such cities. That is, it lies at the far end of the distribution, but all measures, or by most measures. This is stuff you learn in basic statistics courses.
My reading of his material on Sarasota would lead me to propose an alternative hypothesis: Sarasota is now, and will be in the future, far from the mean with respect to seniors living in a community; in fact, if we think of a normal distribution (another hypothesis), Sarasota would be far out on the tail, with respect to other American communities, both now and in the future.
One reason Sarasota is different is that people go there specifically to retire, thus, in general, have the money to relocate and retire to a sunny climate, where they want to retire. Not all seniors can do that. Of course, it is desirable to retire to a locale that has moderate climate, not too hot, not too cold, but many seniors do not have the option to pick their place of retirement.
Thus, Fishman is talking about the well-to-do. Yes, he does note that many of Sarasota's seniors end up living hand-to-mouth, after having spent down their wealth on dying spouses, for example. But again, these poor Sarasota seniors seem to be the exceptions to the rule, the outliers.
One point is that, as journalists must do, Fishman bases his conclusions on his own particular episodes with seniors. As a specialist, he surely knows more than most of us do about seniors. Some of his points are supported by other data, besides his own interviews and observations, which he duly notes. Nonetheless, the reader must bear in mind that, like most journalists, his viewpoint is slanted, if only because he can only interview, and write stories, about a small number of people, when you consider the whole population from which he is drawing, the population of seniors or whatever it is. He can only attempt to incorporate so many viewpoints into his writing, and then he necessarily misses many other viewpoints.
In his second section, Fishman discusses Spain, where he also did many interviews. Again, the problem of generalization looms. Spain has its own peculiar demography, which, while similar to the demographics of other countries, still may not tell the story of these other countries.
In discussing Spain, Fishman notes that older people, even beginning at 55, are both pushed and pulled out of the workforce; thus, they no longer contribute to the national product, but instead become full-time consumers. But if the country is importing workers, younger workers generally, from poorer nations, what can the senior citizens do? They are not needed in the workforce; maybe they ask too much in pay and fringe benefits.
This is what I asked myself. I am three years out of the workforce, living well enough without a job. I don't want to go back to work, but even if I did, my chances of getting hired in a field related to my experience would be small, especially where I live now. There are not many jobs here (an ocean-side county in California).
Thus, seniors in the U.S. (and this is where a generalization to Spain may be actually appropriate) are between a rock and a hard spot. They have no