Increased longevity & social change
Reading Increased longevity will bring profound social change, FT, May 2024.
In the UK in 1965, the most common age of death was in the first year of life. Today the most common age to die is 87 years old.
Wow. I’d have guessed that level of infant mortality would have been around the time of the industrial revolution.
The FT article is a mini review of The Longevity Imperative: Building a Better Society for Healthier, Longer Lives by Andrew J Scott — which sounds like I should add to my reading list.
“Ageing” is sometimes seen as all about problem and challenges for society:
The FT article is a mini review of The Longevity Imperative: Building a Better Society for Healthier, Longer Lives by Andrew J Scott — which sounds like I should add to my reading list.
“Ageing” is sometimes seen as all about problem and challenges for society:
But the crucial point Scott makes is that it also creates opportunities. We need to rethink old age, as individuals and societies. We must not shuffle a huge proportion of our society into unproductive and unhealthy “old age”. We can and must do far better, both individually and socially. This is his “imperative”.
I jumped into an ~40 minute London Business School talk by Scott, which covered health (“we have hospital system not a health system”), the economy and adult development:
https://youtu.be/Qm49ra8z7b8
He points out in the recording that we need to start on a “2nd longevity revolution” with a focus on healthy and productive live.
Back to the FT article:
[…] a world in which most are likely to live into their 90s, many even longer, needs to be thoroughly rethought. […] Instead of one period of education, one of work and one of retirement, it will make sense for people to mix the three up. People will go back to study, repeatedly. They will take breaks, repeatedly. They will change what they do, repeatedly.
Sounds good to me.