By Sam Gutterman
In addition to 1965 being the year the American Academy of Actuaries was founded, it was also a very special—and indeed pivotal—year for many other reasons.
For me, it was the year I graduated from high school, left my parents’ safe nest in Akron, Ohio, and began my independence at the University of Michigan. That summer, I attended the 1964–65 World’s fair, which gave me a global perspective. The Academy and I, in a sense, came of age together.
Looking at political issues, the Great Society programs expanded health care (Medicare and Medicaid were established in 1965), along with other anti-poverty initiatives. The landmark Voting Rights Act—the major civil rights legislation of the 1960s—prohibited racial discrimination in voting. It also helped spur the formation of the National Organization for Women the following year, to help enforce the Voting Rights Act, which banned sex discrimination in employment. Yet progress was uneven: Abroad, Rhodesia’s white-minority government declared independence from Britain, drawing international condemnation; at home, I learned firsthand that prejudice endured when my randomly assigned freshman roommate asked, upon discovering that I was Jewish, where my horns were hidden.
A pivotal period in U.S history was beginning, with the first large-scale U.S. combat troop deployment in Vietnam, contributing to a period of substantial social disruptions and cultural upheavals. A couple of years later, I was turned down by the army (for physical reasons) for service.
Music, a key reflection of culture, was also undergoing transformation. Simon & Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” was re-released with electric instruments—not only was it a No. 1 hit, but also the first (and perhaps only) song I ever memorized. At the same time, Bob Dylan shocked traditionalists by going electric in his 1965 Newport Folk Festival performance. The Beatles released “Help!” and “Rubber Soul,” the Rolling Stones had “Satisfaction,” and The Who gave us “My Generation.” As I arrived at the University of Michigan, I walked into the golden era of Motown—The Supremes, The Temptations, and Smokey Robinson—right in my backyard.
The cultural shift was unmistakable. The last movie I saw as a high schooler was The Sound of Music; the first I saw in Ann Arbor was the Beatles Help!. Many in the older generation reacted with horror to the mop-heads. Clearly, the times were a-changin’.
In terms of demographics, 1965 was a pivotal year. It marked the shift from the post–World War II baby boom to an era of slower population growth and new immigration patterns. The U.S. total fertility rate, which had peaked at about 3.7 children per woman in the late 1950s, had dropped to around 2.9 by 1965, foreshadowing the “Baby Bust” of the 1970s and today’s level of about 1.6. Children born in 1965 were among the youngest members of the baby boom generation. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 ended the restrictive national origins quota system established in the 1920s, opening the door to large-scale immigration from Asia, Africa, and Latin America and reshaping the American population. There were approximately 6% non-native-born Americans in 1965, compared with about 16% in 2025.
We have also grown older as a nation. Over the past 60 years, the U.S. population has aged dramatically. In 1965, 9.4% of Americans were 65 or older; by 2025, that share doubled to 18.8%. Meanwhile, the proportion of children under 15 years old fell from about 30% to 16%. The median age has risen, from roughly 28 years in 1965 to around 39 today.
Technology was taking off—both the big and the small. Soviet cosmonaut Alexei Leonov completed the first spacewalk, and NASA’s Mariner 4 made the first successful flyby of Mars, sending back images confirming that there were no canals. Meanwhile, Gordon Moore proposed “Moore’s Law,” predicting exponential growth in computing power. That same year, I took my first computer course in Michigan Algorithm Decoder (MAD), a precursor to the Fortran programming language.
Looking back, it’s clear that 1965 was a year of beginnings—personal, national, and global. The Academy was born, laying the foundation for a profession dedicated to integrity, expertise, and public service. I began my own journey, and the world was setting in motion changes that would shape the next six decades and beyond. Today, the Academy continues to evolve, guiding actuaries and influencing policy, reminding us that we still live in the echoes of that pivotal year.
Sam Gutterman is chairperson of the Social Security Committee and member of the Retirement Practice Council.