New Data Visualization Reveals Changes in Ways Older Adults Lived and Worked Before and in the Aftermath of the Pandemic

Older adulthood is often associated with economic and social transitions, including retirement, becoming a grandparent, and changes to health. And this decade, the COVID-19 pandemic brought about even more pronounced societal transformations.

The visualization also presents dynamic time-series graphs of recent trends in employment and working from ho­­me from 2015 to 2022.

A new U.S. Census Bureau data visualizationexplores changes across different social characteristics of older adults from 2019 to 2022, a year before the pandemic emergency officially ended, including: computer and internet use; living arrangements; employment; and working from home.

In 2022, 15.6% of employed adults ages 55 to 74 worked from home, compared to just 7.7% in 2019. This rate exceeded 20% in Washington, D.C. (32.7%); Colorado (23.3%), Washington (21.8%), and Arizona (21.5%).

Rates of working from home also varied by social characteristics among employed adults ages 55 to 74.

For example, 24.4% of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher worked from home in 2022, compared to 6.8% of those with less than a high school degree.

Computer ownership among older adults changed, too. In 2022, 91.8% of adults age 65 and older owned a computer, up 5.6 percentage points from 2019. This suggests that older adults were increasingly using computers for their jobs, entertainment and to communicate with family and friends.

Computer ownership varied by state, ranging from 96.0% in Utah to 85.3% in West Virginia.

These statistics are among a trove of data available in this new visualization based on the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) 1-year estimates. This visualization also provides some of the same comparisons that a previous visualization showed for young adults.

The landing page displays highlights of each page: a characteristic profile; computer and internet use; living arrangements; employment; and working from home. The characteristic profile provides some general estimates of the population age 65 and over, while the other pages provide a deeper dive into each topic.

All four topic pages have a dynamic graph that lets users explore a variety of characteristics as well as the percentage point change from 2019 to 2022.

Drop-down menus allow users to change the characteristics and age groups.

Other highlights: maps showing the share of employed older adults working from home, computer ownership and broadband internet subscription by state. The visualization also presents dynamic time-series graphs of recent trends in employment and working from ho­­me from 2015 to 2022.

Lydia R. Anderson and Kevin McElrath are statisticians in the Census Bureau’s Social, Economic, and Housing Statistics Division.

George M. Hayward is a statistician and demographer in the Population Division.

Thom File is the director of Aging Research in the Population Division’s International Programs Center.

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