What's Changing? - Ageing

Please see below selected recent ageing-related change.

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February 2024

The number of centenarians has been growing and will grow more. The Pew Research Centre predicted there will be 3.7m worldwide by 2050, three times as many per head of population as in 2015, but only one in 1,000 of them lives beyond 110, and no one in history is reliably attested to have got past 120. The average is going up; the maximum, much less so. Meanwhile, “healthspan”, the number of healthy, vital years, does not automatically keep pace with lifespan.
Natural selection has no interest in indefinite longevity per se: the traits that spread best are those that make organisms fit in their prime; those that help them live on when reproduction is a distant memory must work through children and grandchildren. Yet the visceral drive to cling to life may be the most basic trait of all.
According to The Economist, almost one in three Americans say they may never retire, for example. The majority said they couldn't afford to give up a full-time job, especially with rising inflation. But if you are fortunate enough to be in a position to choose retirement, should you do it? Hobbies are all well and good for many, but intellectual stimulation, longer lifespans and feeling useful, are all positive reasons to continue working for many.
The International Longevity Centre thinktank calculated the percentage of over 65s relative to the working age population across 121 countries. It found that in the highest-ranked countries where populations are rapidly ageing, there will not be sufficient people of working age to sustain economic performance, pay taxes and fund pensions, if the age of retirement is not significantly raised. For example, while there are currently more than three people of working age per retiree in the UK, this could drop to less than two by 2050.
Playing a musical instrument or singing could help with brain health in old age, research found. Reading music and practising can help to sustain a good memory and the ability to solve complicated tasks. People who play a musical instrument saw the most benefit, which could be due to the multiple demands it places on the individual. The added socialisation brought about by singing in a group was also beneficial. There was no impact on cognitive health from just listening to music. People who continued to play a musical instrument into old age saw an additional benefit, the lead researcher told the BBC.
Forbes's 2024 list of the world's most powerful women revealed that 80% are aged 50 or over, with half aged over 60 - proving it's time to put in place new corporate structures and systems, CEO and author Avivah Wittenberg-Cox argued, claiming that too many companies "nudge out their 50+ employees" and stop investing in their development, while younger bosses and hiring managers "think they are well past their sell-by date". For companies to thrive, she added, they need to combat ageism and sexism and recognise the changing demographics - workers aged 45-64 are already 40% of the working-age population in OECD countries.
The bigger the age gap between managers and employees, the less productive they are, according to research from the Inclusion Initiative and Protiviti. The study of more than 1,450 workers in finance, tech and professional services found that employees with managers more than 12 years their senior were 1.5 times as likely to report low productivity and nearly three times as likely to report being extremely dissatisfied with their job. Researchers said it showed that firms must develop intergenerationally inclusive work practices, including making it easier for each generation to 'fit in' and developing/advancing people based on merit rather than age.

December 2023

Women still tend to live longer than men. In 2021, this difference amounted to a 5-year gap in global life expectancy: the average life expectancy was 73.8 years for women versus 68.4 years for men.
A 70-year-old Ugandan woman became the oldest woman in Africa to give birth. Safina Namukwaya delivered a boy and a girl by caesarean section after conceiving through IVF. Born at 34 weeks' gestation, the babies were healthy and weighed two kilogrammes each. They were Namukwaya’s second delivery in three years, following the birth of a girl in 2020.
One of the most prominent geroscientists, David Sinclair, published a new theory of ageing. His paper is publicly available here. The Information Theory of Ageing (ITOA) proposes that the loss of epigenome - information involved in regulating the genome - plays a critical role in ageing.
Further reading:

November 2023

Men now have their lowest life expectancy since 1996. The widening gap between men and women been expanded by COVID and drug overdoses, which are more likely in men.

October 2023

The number of UK over-65s still working rose to 1.47mn in 2022, an all-time record, according to the Office for National Statistics. This compares with 1.1mn in 2014. Much of the increase was driven by part-time work and self-employment. Part of the reason people carry on working is financial. Rising prices and the ending of gold-plated company pensions mean many cannot afford to stop working entirely. Most private sector final-salary pension schemes provide annual increases that fall far short of current inflation. But there is also the desire to continue to matter. Moving on from a full-on job brings with it more identity issues than simply accepting one’s age.

September 2023

After years of false starts, the idea of a genuine elixir of longevity is taking wing. Behind it is a coterie of fascinated and ambitious scientists and enthusiastic and self-interested billionaires. Increasingly, they are being joined by ordinary people who have come to think that the right behaviour and drugs could add years, maybe decades, to their lives, noted The Economist.
The Economist also discussed how ageing happens and whether it can be slowed, which has recently become the subject of intense research and investment. Scientists are exploring differing approaches to reducing age-related deterioration, tech billionaires are experimenting with as-yet-unproven interventions. It is entirely possible that by 2100, people will typically live to be 100, thanks to a better understanding of the process of ageing.
Research has revealed that our personalities often “improve” with age. In what psychologists have dubbed “the maturity principle,” people tend to grow more extraverted, agreeable, and conscientious as they grow older, and less neurotic. The transformation is gradual, essentially unnoticeable to the individual, but after many years, many people can reflect on their past selves and be amazed at the differences.
With a fast-ageing population, Japan has turned the problem into an opportunity. According to a 2023 study, four out of every ten Japanese companies recruited people aged 70 or over in 2022.

August 2023

Biophysicists have calculated that, with maximal improvement in health care, the biological clock for humans must stop between 120-150 years. Biotechnology firms are putting this to the test by aiming to extend our normal lifespan as far as they can. However, a basic problem, at least thus far, is that a sustained quality of life has not been extended to keep up with expanded longevity. What value is there in existing if the ability to do what you most value becomes unavailable? Is it possible to live too long if, as people get older, they are not gaining economic security, maintaining their usual level of independence, extending their social relationships, or avoiding chronic illnesses.
Globally, companies are seeing older employees make up a greater share of their workforce. In no place is this as acute as in Japan, where over 40% of the workforce is aged 55 and older: the country’s labour crunch is getting so severe that now firms are actively hiring 70-year-olds.

April 2023

Whang-Od, an Indigenous tattoo artist in the Philippines, became in 2023 the oldest person to be featured on the cover of Vogue magazine. The 106-year-old Whang-Od is famous for being one of the last people alive who performs batok, the traditional art of tattooing by hand in the mountainous Kalinga region.
Many diseases of old age are associated with chronic, low-level inflammation in the brain, organs, joints, and circulatory system — sometimes called “inflammageing.” Inflammation in a part of the brain called the ventromedial hypothalamus, or VMH, seems to play a particularly important role in promoting aging throughout the body. Research in mice discovered that a protein in VMH cells acts like a brake pedal to reduce inflammation and slow the pace of ageing.
Tokyo added an over-80 division to its “Soccer For Life” league. The oldest player is 93 years old.

March 2023

In an attempt to stimulate China’s flagging housing market, banks in some cities extended the upper age limit on mortgages to between 80 and 95. Regulators had previously encouraged or enforced lower age limits on borrowing, measured by the formulation of age plus loan period, and usually capped at about 70 years, but the new offerings, from banks and lenders across several Chinese provinces, included limits of up to 90 or even 100 years and allowed older people to apply for mortgages of 20 or more years.

February 2023

Fewer than one in five hiring managers would hire someone over the age of 65, a survey found. For those aged 55-64, 41% of hiring managers would consider giving them a job. With state retirement ages creeping up across Europe, companies may need a culture shift to employ older people. Some businesses are adapting roles to suit older people, who may have health issues or caring responsibilities to balance.
Bertrand Russell believed that growing older contentedly is matter of being able to “make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.”

January 2023

Prejudice towards older workers still persists among UK employers, suggested the Financial Times. Just four in 10 managers polled by UK professional body the Chartered Management Institute said they were open to employing people aged between 50 and 64 to a “large or moderate” extent. That’s despite the fact that an exodus of older employees from the workforce is playing a major role in labour shortages in certain sectors. However, a shift in attitudes is emerging among some companies, as they try to lure over-50s back with the promise of more flexible working.
Stuart Lewis, chief executive of Rest Less, a digital community and advocacy group for the over-50s, warned: “Age discrimination is very widespread and people talk about age as the last socially acceptable form of prejudice. Language we would not dream of hearing about ethnicity or gender is routinely used about age.” Many campaigners believe that employers and governments need to step up and improve training and career opportunities for older workers as well as crack down on age discrimination in the workplace and in recruitment.
Most people who get old will have at least some unhealthy years in later life. The global gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy, a measure of how long a person lives without health problems that impede everyday activity, is nearly 10 years, according to the World Health Organisation.
Tech billionaires are backing a growing number of startups that are out to find a cure for old age, the Financial Times reported. James Peyer, CEO of Cambrian Biopharma, a US firm that incubates and invests in longevity startups, said the "north star" for those working in the longevity industry is to create a new generation of preventive drugs that are just as impactful as vaccines and antibiotics. But there are ethical concerns. Christopher Wareham, a bioethicist at Utrecht University, believes advances in longevity science could increase the gaps between the rich and poor in health, wealth and power.
An anti-ageing gene discovered in a population of centenarians has been shown to rewind the heart's biological age by 10 years. The breakthrough, published in Cardiovascular Research and led by scientists at the University of Bristol and the MultiMedica Group in Italy, offers a potential target for patients with heart failure. See also: Scientists Have Reached a Key Milestone in Learning How to Reverse Ageing.

December 2022

In 2022, Intuition Robotics rolled out ElliQ. Designed as a non-human companion for older adults, ElliQ is a tabletop robot that uses AI to interact conversationally with its user. It asks them how their day is, helps them check in with family, guides them through physical exercises and wishes them good night when they head for bed. The software that runs ElliQ was then upgraded, specifically to make for deeper conversations and stronger relationship building. Part of that is built around new content like museum tours and virtual travel. ElliQ also now helps users record their memories and share them with others.
Further reading:

November 2022

Many people over 65 are hoping to become part of the so-called “unretired”. The cost of living crisis, opportunities for more flexible work and a post-lockdown realisation of the importance of social contact all coincided, pushing many to look again for work and secure employment. Analysis showed that workers aged 50-64 had been leaving the UK workforce because they were choosing to retire early, but at the same time, according to the Office for National Statistics, the number of people over 65 in work or looking for work hit close to 1.5mn in 2022.
In the fifth decade of life, our brains often start to undergo a radical "rewiring" that results in diverse networks becoming more integrated and connected over the ensuing decades, with accompanying effects on cognition. The networking changes likely result from the brain reorganising itself to function as well as it can with dwindling resources and ageing "hardware. Proper diet, regular exercise, and a healthy lifestyle can keep the mind in good working order and put networking changes on hold, sometimes well into old age, noted Big Think.
"SuperAgers" are those individuals for whom aging does not seem to impact cognitive ability. Research shows marked anatomical differences between the neurons of SuperAgers and those of "normal" elderly people. Specifically, SuperAgers have larger, healthier neurons in a part of the brain called the entorhinal cortex.

October 2022

Longevity research has often focused on combatting one specific aspect of ageing, like regenerating the liver or the brain, but recently, there’s been a shift towards looking for the silver bullet for all age-related diseases. “The real potential of longevity startups and longevity therapeutics is that you can take a drug that could rejuvenate your entire body and prevent all kinds of age-related diseases,” according to Alexandra Bause, cofounder of longevity-focused VC and company builder Apollo Health, who has argued that it is becoming possible to target the ageing process itself and delay all age-related diseases - cardiovascular disease, metabolic disease and neurodegenerative disease, as well as cancer.
US scientists developed a new research model to estimate the longevity of those older than 70 years. Rather than focus on specific diagnoses, it evaluates 17 causal factors that impact longevity and that can help predict whether older people are likely to live two, five or 10 more years. These include the ability to grocery shop, cholesterol levels and whether or not a person has smoked. The leading factor across the study's benchmarks was found to be physical function.

September 2022

In recent years, a bottle of Drops of Youth serum by The Body Shop sold approximately every 23 seconds. Despite that bestseller status, The Body Shop decided to ditch the name as it started to take a stance against ageism. Drops of Youth wasreformulated to contain more of its star ingredient, which now also lends its name to the product line: Edelweiss.

July 2022

Systemic ageism exists in today’s world of work despite laws and regulations meant to protect older workers. The pandemic made it very clear that older workers face an uphill battle in the workforce In the US alone, about 3.8 million older workers lost their jobs when the pandemic first hit, according to research from The New School. Roughly 400,000 of them were forced into retirement one year later (about 180,000 older workers would lose work in any given month under normal circumstances and 30,000 would be retired a year later).
In other words, the pandemic was tied to a more than tenfold increase in the amount of older workers who were likely forced into retirement due to unemployment.
As life expectancy rises, people of all ages, genders and backgrounds are prioritising skincare. The lure of beauty products to look younger is nothing new, but beyond this revival of skincare regimens lies more tech-savvy approaches. Consumers are seeking alternatives to change their cells to stay younger longer, seeking out anti-ageing technology. Meanwhile, Shinya Yamanaka is a Nobel Prize winner whose work led to the discovery that cells can be brought back to an immature state.

June 2022

Research suggested that changes in the composition of blood drive the ageing process. Researchers at Cambridge University discovered that as humans age we endure a ‘catastrophic’ degradation in the quality of our blood, caused by changes in stem cell activity. The finding raises the possibility of new therapeutics to slow ageing.
Japan recorded its lowest number of births in more than a century, recording a population decline in 2021 of 628,205, a 3.5% drop from the previous year. This is in part explained by Japan’s ageing population: around one third of Japanese residents are over the age of 65.
Saudi Arabia said it would spend US$1 billion a year on research for treatments to slow ageing. The money would be channelled to the new Hevolution Foundation, and would make Saudi the largest single sponsor of anti-ageing research.
Aeon noted that old age is not exactly a time of life that most of us welcome, although globally speaking it is a privilege to reach it. In Western societies, the shocked realisation that we are growing old often fills us with alarm and even terror. As Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her study of the topic, La vieillesse (1970), old age arouses a visceral aversion, often a "biological repugnance".
Further reading:

May 2022

In more than half of the 38 OECD member states, some of the most prosperous nations on Earth, normal retirement age is expected to increase by the time young people now entering the workforce depart during their later years, according to one projection. In some cases the step up may be stark; young men in Turkey can plan on retiring at 65 instead of the mandated age of 52 as of 2020, for example, while in Denmark men whose grandfathers could retire at 65.5 years of age may have to wait until they’re 74.
In many cases, when an older person re-enters the work force after losing a job, they will earn a lower wage than what they were making before. Being very experienced, and then losing your job, means it’s much more likely that the job you eventually find is going to pay you less and just be less attractive, partly because of age discrimination, but also because of “the loss of experience that was really specific to a particular workplace, or occupation, or company.
A study found that infusing the brains of older mice with spinal fluid extracted from their younger counterparts improved the geriatric rodents’ memories, The New York Times reported. it’s unclear at this stage whether humans would enjoy a similar effect, not to mention the many ethical and viability issues at play. Still, the discovery lends credence to the hypothesis that reversing age-related cognitive decline depends more on restoring “the brain’s environment to something closer to its youthful state” rather than attacking specific disease processes.
Asking whether ageing could become a "curable illness", James Peyer, Founder & CEO of Cambrian Biopharma asked whether ageing actually has to happen, or whether it could be reversed.
Further reading:
- Ageing clocks aim to predict how long you’ll live - Curio

April 2022

The oldest person in the world died at age 119. Kane Tanaka of Japan was born in January 1903, the same year the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane.
Between 1800 and 2017, average global life expectancy more than doubled, from 30 years to 73 years. In some of the least advantaged global regions, life expectancy increased by 10 years in just the past two decades. Major breakthroughs in vaccination have enabled humanity to eradicate or suppress deadly infectious diseases such as smallpox and polio. Since 1990, we have seen breakthroughs in human genomics, a substantial reduction in cancer mortality, and improvements in smoking cessation.
Ageing workers are in the throes of a sweeping disappearing act, vanishing from their desks at higher rates than their mid-career colleagues in workplaces around the world, believes the Financial Times. Nearly 70% of the 5mn people who left work in the US during the pandemic were older than 55. In the UK, the employment rate of over-50s fell by twice that of those aged between 25 and 49 years in 2020.
Everyone in South Korea became one year younger – on paper at least. To harmonise the country’s records with those in the rest of the world, president-elect Yoon Suk-yeol wanted to do away with the current system in which South Koreans are aged “1” when they are born.
Researchers rejuvenated a 53-year-old’s skin cells to the equivalent of a 23-year-old’s. The technique is far from clinical use, but there’s hope it could extend health.
As many people rethought their travel habits after the pandemic, "longevity tourism" gained ground among those looking for a meaningful experience. This type of holiday involves visiting one of the world's so-called Blue Zones, or longevity hotspots in Sardinia, Greece, California, Costa Rica and Japan, where people live the longest, with many reaching well over 100 years of age. There are many parallels in the way people go about their lives in these regions – and travellers can learn from them in classes that range from shopping at a food market, to cooking and yoga etc.
Further reading:
- Ageless Audiobook - Audible.co.uk

March 2022

Over-65s will make up more than a fifth of OECD countries' populations by 2028 – yet some older customers say they are treated as "idiots" by many companies. Writing in the Financial Times, Andrew Hill claimed that clever businesses should recognise ageing customers as a growth market, and cater to their needs, whether they're analogue or digital.
As the pandemic waned, older consumers were expected to drive a wave of spending across travel, medical services, luxury goods, and more. Consumers aged 65+ commanded about US$8.4tn in spending power in 2020 - a number that’s expected to grow to US$14tn by 2030 or soon after , signalling a key opportunity for ageing-focused technology solutions. Investors also expect that seniors, pushed online during the pandemic, will permanently embrace e-commerce, social networks, and other aspects of the online economy.
In her 60s, Simone de Beauvoir wrote a 650-page book La vieillesse, to reveal the truth about ageing. She argued that ageing isn’t only a biological decline: society crushes ageing bodies through ageist discrimination (see also: What's Changing? - Authenticity)
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February 2022

Further reading:

January 2022

Altos Labs, a Silicon Valley startup on a mission to defeat human ageing, launched with $3 billion in funding. Altos says it will ‘decipher the pathways of cellular rejuvenation programming to create a completely new approach to medicine’.
Further reading:
- Ageing to the beat of their own drums – from one to 100 years old - Aeon Videos

December 2021

Is the idea of retirement itself fit for retirement, asks Camilla Cavendish in Prospect. She noted that Japan has already introduced a programme to provide work for retired people and the oldest participant in this scheme is 101 years old. It is not an argument for ending the pension system, but for a greater emphasis by government on the importance of healthy living.
Befriending people decades older or younger than yourself can be a useful way to learn from others' wisdom and broaden your perspectives on work and life, according to personal brand coach Carlii Lyon on LinkedIn. She explained how her friends, both much older and younger, help avoid creating strict rules about what we are meant to be at a particular age.

November 2021

The trend for more older workers to be in employment came to an abrupt halt after the coronavirus pandemic took hold, with employees over 50 disproportionately likely to be furloughed or made redundant. In the UK, the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a think-tank, said in 2020 that only a third of workers over 50 who had lost jobs during the pandemic had found a new one within six months, even though, generally, the workforce in major advanced economies around the world is ageing. A 2020 report by the OECD, a club of mostly rich nations, said the share of the population aged 50 and over would increase from 37 per cent in 2020 to 45 per cent by 2050, and mean greater numbers of older workers were in paid work.
Mid-career and older workers feel they lack support in the workplace and are concerned about ageism in the application process, research showed. A survey by inclusivity specialists Working Wise found that 44% of workers over 45 had altered their age on their CV and more than a third say they had experienced ageism. The vast majority said they were keen to learn new skills but felt undervalued by employers.
Through live online classes, GetSetUp encourages older adults to connect and engage with their peers. The platform was designed to make it easy for anyone to teach or join a small class, interacting as they cook, dance or learn to play the guitar. Launched in India, GetSetUp was used in 2021 by over 4 million people in 160+ countries. The pandemic gave rise to a new wave of (typically older) digital converts, many of whom were keen to seek out their "virtual tribe", noted TrendWatching.

August 2021

By 2050, 2 billion people will be 60+ years old, and by 2026, the sales of services and products for this audience will be around $27 trillion compared to only $17 trillion in 2019, according to TechCrunch.
From 2018 to 2060, the portion of US adults aged 65+ is expected to grow about 81%. As the older adult population grew, senior care and wellness received increasing attention, driving innovation in the health tech space. For example, tools like telehealth platforms and smart devices helped seniors access more personalised care from their own homes.
A study of humans and about 30 other primate species led by researchers at the University of Southern Denmark indicated that as life expectancy increases, so too does lifespan equality. In other words, as more people survive their younger years, the more people die around the same age in later years. The research suggests that aging in humans and other primates is set at a fixed rate with little chance of changing it. It may also suggest that society ages together, and extending the lifespans of individuals may require an effort at the societal level.

July 2021

Prospect noted that Madeleine Bunting’s 2020 book Labours of Love blended reportage with ethical interrogation into the way we do (and don’t) care for the old and others, claiming that resources are one problem: another is our culture of quantification and that capitalism misses the essence of what care involves: not task performance, but being present and listening...in our hours of need, we all know a personal touch is what matters most.
As the global population continues to age, caring for the elderly will only become more challenging. However, the impact of the pandemic showed that new and widespread use of technology can help. Against this backdrop, several tech startups entered the scene. Companies like Birdie, Cera Care and Lifted hoped to use apps, AI, wearable devices and other technology for everything from remote health monitoring to patient record management.

June 2021

There’s growing awareness of the economic and cultural impact of older people, too. Even back in 2015, spending by older households in the G20 was almost $10 trillion, more than the combined GDP of Japan, Australia, Canada and Brazil.
Often referred to as the "grey wave" or "silver tsunami" - figurative language that has been criticised for its ageist connotations - a period of ageing is currently underway that has seen the global proportion of the population aged 65 and over increase by more than 50% in the last twenty years. By 2050, those over 60 are expected to represent one fifth of the entire global population. Not only are there now more elderly than ever before in history, they're also living longer than ever before. Average life expectancies in America, for example, are on track to have increased by over ten years in the century leading up to 2060.
Israeli scientists extended the lifespan of mice by 23% with a technique they say may translate to humans. They boosted a protein, SIRT6, known to decline with age, and will now search for a drug that can elevate levels of SIRT6 in the human body.

May 2021

The COVID pandemic negatively affected employment prospects for those over the age of 50, according to new data. The figures from the UK Office for National Statistics showed that workers aged 50 and over were more likely to report working fewer hours than usual, with those over 65 most likely to say they had worked reduced hours. The over-50s also made up more than a quarter of the 1.3 million people who were furloughed, and three in 10 of those workers on furlough believe there is a 50 per cent or higher chance that they will lose their job when the scheme ends.

April 2021

For Aeon, ancient wisdom and literary musing find a close translation in modern neurological research into dementia and Alzheimer’s disease: retrogenesis, meaning backward (retro-) beginning (-genesis). It was proposed by Barry Reisberg, a psychiatrist at the New York University school of medicine, as a model to make sense of the progressive decline in Alzheimer’s. In 1999, Reisberg defined retrogenesis as ‘the process by which degenerative mechanisms reverse the order of acquisition in normal development’. In other words, the deterioration of a patient with Alzheimer’s follows, in reverse order, a child’s normal development. What a child learns first in this world, a patient loses last; what a child learns last, the patient loses first.
Research from the Centre for Ageing Better showed that 36% of jobseekers aged 50-69 think their age disadvantages them at every stage of the recruitment process. The Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis also recently reported that older workers in the US face higher unemployment than mid-career workers for the first time in 50 years.

March 2021

The pandemic was especially difficult for older workers, who were hit harder by job losses than mid-career workers. Older workers also spent a much longer time unemployed than their younger counterparts.
However, mounting evidence from psychological science researchers suggested that amid the pandemic, those aged 50 and above coped better at work and retained a more positive emotional well-being than younger workers. The findings led researchers to wrestle with the question of whether people somehow develop better coping skills as they age, according to The New York Times writes. Researchers claimed that older workers were consistently more durable, stable and more positive overall than their younger counterparts.

February 2021

Europe’s oldest person beat Covid-19. The fully recovered French nun then celebrated her 117th birthday today.

January 2021

“For old people,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in her meditation on ageing and what beauty really means, “beauty doesn’t come free with the hormones, the way it does for the young… It has to do with who the person is.” But who is the person staring back at us from the mirror as the decades roll by? The mystery of what makes you and your childhood self the same person despite a lifetime of changes is, after all, one of the most interesting questions of philosophy, noted Maria Popova in Brain Pickings.

December 2020

The biggest rise in unemployment since the onset of the pandemic has been among the young. But, warned the Financial Times, older workers are also disproportionately likely to have been furloughed or made redundant, and many have left the labour market. Evidence from previous recessions suggests they will struggle the most to find a new job even as the economy recovers. “Even pre-Covid, the re-employment rate was far lower for the over-50s than for any other group,” warned Emily Andrews, senior evidence manager at the Centre for Ageing Better.
There are about 200 children with progeria worldwide. Although they seem healthy as babies, by age 1 or 2 they are failing to grow, losing the fat under their skin, and developing vascular and other problems characteristic of 80-year-olds. They typically die around age 14 of stroke, cardiovascular disease, and other illnesses of old age. Cognitively normal, they know exactly what is happening to them. However, research now suggests that CRISPR cures progeria in mice, raising hope for one-time therapy for a disease that causes rapid ageing,
South Korea's population dropped for the first time in over a decade, falling by almost 21,000 year-on-year as the number of deaths surpassed the number of births. South Korea is grappling with an increasingly aging society, with more than 24 percent of the population now over the age of 60.

November 2020

Researchers from Tel Aviv University and Shamir Medical Centre in Israel found that high-pressure oxygen therapy in hyperbaric chambers could halt and even reverse the shortening of telomeres, caps on the ends of chromosomes that are key to the ageing process. As we get older, telomeres shorten until the cells themselves die. High-pressure oxygen therapy lengthened participants’ telomeres, reversing ageing at the cellular level. The findings may lead to treatments that improve our ability to pay attention and process information as we age.
US President-elect Biden is three years older than Bill Clinton, who took the oath in 1992. The future-facing lesson for all of us? New World Same Humans thinks that it's this: we’ve extended the human healthspan, and that has made possible new kinds of story arcs across our lives. And besides, life is full of surprises. Never count yourself out.
As people age, they often lose their motivation to learn new things or engage in everyday activities. In a study of mice, MIT neuroscientists identified a brain circuit that is critical for maintaining this kind of motivation. This circuit is particularly important for learning to make decisions that require evaluating the cost and reward that come with a particular action. The researchers showed that they could boost older mice's motivation to engage in this type of learning by reactivating this circuit, and they could also decrease motivation by suppressing the circuit, reported Big Think.
Technological frontrunners like South Korea aren't immune to the digital gap between young and old, which has only widened as the pandemic increased our use of contactless technology. To narrow that divide, the Seoul Digital Foundation is employing robots to teach older adults to use KakaoTalk, one of South Korea's most popular messaging apps.
A professor of psychology at the University of California argued in Aeon that human beings need special care while we are young and when we become old. The 2020 pandemic made this vivid: millions of people across the world took care of children at home, and millions more tried to care for grandparents, even when they couldn’t be physically close to them. COVID-19 reminded us how much we need to take care of the young and the old. But it’s also reminded us how much we care for and about them, and how important the relations between the generations are.

October 2020

One in nine people in the world is 60 or older and this is expected to rise to one in five people by 2050. Increased longevity is an indicator of successful economic development; however, an ageing population presents social and economic challenges that have become increasingly apparent in many industrialized nations around the globe. The implications of greater longevity are profound and demand a response from policymakers and financial institutions that adequately recognises the extent of the shift to longer working lives, with measures designed to meet the financial needs of ageing societies. The COVID 19 health crisis, with the devastating impact on many sectors of the global economy, exacerbated the already challenging situation with the retirement adequacy in many countries.

July 2020

Even before the coronavirus pandemic, high-profile collapses and negative publicity, not to mention steep costs, have increased the need for alternatives to residential care among a rapidly ageing population. Large-scale retirement villages have taken off in a big way in recent years. There are more than 100 in the UK alone, each usually comprised of 100 or more properties. There are a variety of housing styles with a range of facilities, some of which reach luxurious standards with sauna, spas and libraries. Meals and personal care are sometimes factored in within care packages and costs are tailored to the resident

June 2020

We are not just living longer. Many of us are also healthier for longer, noted the FT This may sound strange when the world has been upended by a virus that kills mostly the old, but this is not going to noticeably thin the ranks of the elderly. Nor will they change the fundamental dilemma of many developed countries, as well as China: that they have too few young people to support a dependent older population.
Employers have historically viewed older workers with scepticism, perceiving, variously, that their skills have deteriorated or become obsolete or that they are overqualified, will require long ramp-up times, lack commitment to the job, or are simply too old. These concerns faded during the coronavirus crisis. Employers are now recognising the strengths this pool of workers has demonstrated all along: institutional knowledge, education, work experience, mature perspective, stable life stage, dedication, loyalty, and an energy and enthusiasm about returning to work, noted the Harvard Business Review.
It is not a word you will find in any dictionary and yet “unretirement” is a term the world of business should get to know urgently, argued Raconteur. According to a groundbreaking study published in 2019 by King’s College London, deciding to unretire is a societal phenomenon we are barely aware of and yet more and more of us are now doing it. The research showed that a quarter of people in the UK who retire now change their minds and resume work, mostly within five years of giving up their jobs. The results indicated that there are various factors behind such a decision.
Some scientists are arguing that we need to redefine ageing. For example, David Sinclair, geneticist at Harvard Medical School, says ageing should no longer be seen as a natural consequence of getting older, but as a condition in and of itself. What could be the implications of a new definition? The World Health Organisation and the US Food and Drug Administration classify diseases and this guides how drugs can be trialled, prescribed and sold. It could also direct more research and investment into the field.

May 2020

Age discrimination has long blighted labour markets around the world, in spite of legal prohibitions against it, warned The Financial Times. Do campaigners worry the coronavirus crisis is about to make age discrimination far worse? “Hugely,” according to Ros Altmann, a former UK pensions ministers. “I’m so upset to see it.” Covid-19 has reinforced the idea of older people as frail and vulnerable. Some previous pandemics have largely affected the young — the polio outbreaks of the 1950s mainly hit children under five; the devastating 1918-19 flu killed millions of young adults — but Covid-19 mostly kills older sufferers.

April 2020

Age UK warned that prolonged social isolation for all over-70s could be “unimaginably” bleak. Given that the living symbol of the UK’s resistance to the virus turned 100 during the coronavirus crisis, Tortoise Media warned that it may not be a wise idea to patronise our elders.

March 2020

According to a study published by King’s College London, deciding to unretire is a societal phenomenon we are barely aware of and yet more and more of us are now doing it. The research showed that a quarter of people in the UK who retire now change their minds and resume work, mostly within five years of giving up their jobs. The results indicated that there are various factors behind such a decision.
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, communities have come together (even as they have sometimes been physically forced apart), and individuals have engaged in simple acts of kindness to remind the sick and quarantined that they are not forgotten. Yet from some quarters, we’ve also seen a degree of cruelty that is truly staggering. “The elderly” are bunched together as a faceless mass. Lost entirely is the fact that the elderly are individual human beings, each with a distinctive face and voice, each with hopes and dreams, memories and regrets, friendships and marriages, loves lost and loves sustained.
Improvements in healthcare treatments worldwide, and increased access to them, mean we are living longer than ever before. The global number of elderly people, aged 65 or above, outnumbered children under five years of age in 2018 for the first time, while those aged 80 and over is forecast to triple between 2019 and 2050.
Further reading:

February 2020

Further reading:
- Gains in UK life expectancy stall after decade of austerity - Financial Times
- How Much of Ageing Is in Our Control? - MyFitnessPal

January 2020

The world is getting older. Over the next 30 years, many older people will move into nursing homes and assisted living. This group will redefine what senior living looks like, writes Quartz, giving birth to an era of “geriatric cool” and a new luxury industry that caters to it. The senior-living industry is growing quickly to meet the demands of an ageing world, and redefining the culture of aging in the process. This is a future influenced by the on-demand lifestyles of millennials and the hospitality industry rather than hospitals.
Further reading:

December 2019

People are living longer, but with longevity comes challenges. The World Economic Forum’s Investing in (and for) Our Future report, looked at life expectancy and savings provisions across six major world economies. The findings showed that people should expect to live longer than the pot of money they have saved for retirement, by between eight to almost 20 years on average, with the highest burden on women. Ageing populations have placed unsustainable pressure on government and employer-sponsored pension systems, leading to a growing trend for individuals to take responsibility for financing their own retirement. But savings have failed to keep pace with the decline in traditional pension plans, leading to the current retirement savings deficit.

November 2019

As societies age, employers need to tap into the wisdom and experience of the older workforce. Analysis by Mercer highlighted the numerous ways experienced workers can bring value to the workplace, with these virtues often sitting beyond traditional performance management metrics. Benefits can include: being lower cost due to the lower likelihood of them leaving the business; their influence in helping to retain, develop and engage more junior employees; their impact on group productivity via their increased knowledge sharing; their ability to foster collaboration, cohesion and resiliency within groups and their support for innovation and strengthening customer connections.
Further reading:

October 2019

The world is getting older. By 2030, the population that is over the age of 65 will rise by nearly 40 percent. By 2050, it will more than double. How can healthcare systems manage a big uptick in chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, or Alzheimer's without going broke? Is immigration the answer? Or robots? These are just a few of the questions the next generation of political leaders will have to grapple with as our populations get older.
Further reading:
- Implications of ageing - Raconteur Push back on double prejudice of ageism on top of sexism - Financial Times
- The Rise Of The ‘Greypreneur’ – Re-writing The Rules Of Retirement - Standard Life

September 2019

The number of older people diagnosed with four or more diseases will double between 2015 and 2035. Many people are living longer but, for many, those extra years are blighted by ill health.
Age discrimination is a common reality in the workplace, and its effects extend well beyond individual workers. According to a study by business insurance provider Hiscox, 21% of those over the age of 40 have been the victim of age discrimination in the workplace, 80% of whom say it has impacted their career trajectory. At the same time, 62% of all workers received no formal training related to age-based discrimination in the previous 12 months, according to the study.
Further reading:

August 2019

Further reading:
- Older coworkers help design your dream job, life - Quartz at Work

July 2019

The radical longevity movement has undergone massive growth, with the amount of investment in various longevity-focused products and endeavours has jumped drastically, from millions to many billions of dollars. Bank of America analysts predict the longevity industry could be worth “at least $600 billion” by 2025.
Strained government and employee retirement plans have left individuals increasingly responsible for their own retirement; many are finding their personal savings to be inadequate. Retirees in six major economies should expect to outlive their savings by eight to nearly 20 years on average, with women and Japanese retirees outliving their savings for longer. To close these savings gaps, individuals and policy-makers must take steps to ensure individual retirement investments can provide returns retirees won’t outlive.

June 2019

Further reading:

May 2019

For the Financial Times, longer lifespans and declining birth-rates - as fertility plummets almost everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa - constitute the most dramatic story of our age. Shrinking, ageing populations may alter the balance of power between countries: notably between the US and China, the latter of which is growing old before it gets rich. Longevity will create multigenerational households and age-diverse workforces. The falling ratio of young to old will rewrite social contracts and force us to rethink the whole notion of family.
For TrendWatching, targeting older consumers is perhaps the smartest, yet least adopted business strategy today. First, sheer numbers: in 2015, one in 12 people around the world were over 65, by 2050 it will be one in six. Second, spending power: in the US, boomers control 70% of disposable income. Third, future growth: between 2015 and 2030, over half of the total urban consumption growth in developed countries will be driven by those aged over 60.
Further reading:

April 2019

In Europe, taxes would have to rise as much as 30 percent to cover future pension outlays, claimed the IMF.

March 2019

For the first time in history there are more people over the age of 65 than under the age of five. The trend towards ageing has economists worried about soaring pension costs and weakening productivity. Older economies appear to be less productive because older workers are less eager to embrace new technologies. Research suggests that economic dynamism could be maintained by increasing industrial competition or immigration, but it will be difficult to win political support for either, warned The Economist.

February 2019

In 1997, about 5 percent of crimes in Japan were committed by people over the age of 65. By 2017, the percentage had risen to 20. Why, asked GZEROMedia? Some say Japan’s pension system isn’t generous enough and that the elderly are choosing prison, where they’re guaranteed three meals a day, over poverty. Others add that many older Japanese would rather live within a prison community than isolated and lonely on the outside. Whatever the cause, this may become a problem worth studying in all countries with fast-expanding populations of pensioners.
Further reading:
- How Long Will We Live in 2069? – 2069 – Medium

January 2019

Further reading:
- China's One Child Policy coming home to roost: old people, in big cities, frightened of the sky - Boing Boing
- Supporting workers in mid-life helps retain skills and expertise - FT

December 2018

The UN estimated that the world will have 2.1 billion people over age 60 by 2050. Around the world, governments (and companies) are grappling with the implications of aging populations, and reassessing how retirement works. The New York Times examined ways countries are addressing the issue (paywall), from increasing the retirement age to reforming pension systems to incentivising people to work longer.

November 2018

In a culture that celebrates youth and vitality as the summum bonum, old age and its attendant frailties seem more like shameful system failures than inevitable realities from which we might learn. It need not be this way, argued The Hedgehog Review, which looked at ageing and dying from a number of vantage points: socioeconomic, personal, literary, and medical - all with the aim of recovering the meaning and value of life in its twilight hours.
More than half of Japanese babies can expect to live to 100. The Economist noted that this prospect would have horrified Yukio Mishima, a writer who thought it so important to die young and handsome that he ritually disembowelled himself after staging a pantomime “coup” attempt in 1970. It horrifies today’s pessimists, too. They worry that, as the country ages and its population shrinks, health bills will soar, the pension system will go bust, villages will empty and there will be too few youngsters to care for the elderly.
China is turning grey on a scale the world has never seen, noted Quartz News, exploring what happens when the world’s largest group of baby boomers remains eager and able to work past retirement age, and why we need to redefine the role of ageing populations in society.

October 2018

Town Square is a 1950s-style town that offers an interactive experience for seniors with dementia or Alzheimer’s. The experience immerses visitors in reminiscence therapy, which transports patients to a time of their strongest memories (usually formed between ages 10-30). The Town Square, reported TrendWatching, is currently targeting patients in their 70s or 80s, which is why it replicates the period between 1953-1961. Each Town Square features 14 storefronts (including a pet store, a diner, and a movie theatre), where caregivers guide visitors through specialised, therapeutic activities.
According to a study published by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation in Seattle, people in Spain will have an average lifespan of 85.8 years by 2040, while those in Japan will lag ever so slightly behind on 85.7 years.
Life expectancies have risen by an average of three years per decade since the 1940s and, while retirement ages are gradually increasing, people are spending longer not working without the savings to justify it. This has created a $70-trillion pensions timebomb in eight of the world’s largest economies, which could swell by nearly six times by 2050, warned Raconteur.
Further reading:
- Older workers are primed for a comeback - FT

September 2018

New analysis of international data from 35 countries, published by the International Longevity Centre, argued in favour of a “longevity dividend”. The authors found that as life expectancy increases, so does “output per hour worked, per worker and per capita”. Yet, much of the public debate on ageing has been framed in terms of a “burden”. As populations age, governments have worried about how a swelling population of retired people will put increasing stress on pension systems and the social care sector.
Researchers noted that, for older people, the general risk of death seems to drop by about 5% for each point gained on the Mediterranean diet scale. What’s more, some past research has shown associations between the Mediterranean diet and a lower risk of cancer, and particularly with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
Further reading:
- Help - my colleagues are ageist - FT
- Robots will probably help care for you when you’re old - Quartz

August 2018

Humans are living longer, which puts additional strain on healthcare provision, social care and pensions. And unless these issues are addressed, they could wreak havoc on economies in the future, warned the World Economic Forum (WEF). The thinking goes that by harnessing the potential of older workers, governments can raise additional tax revenues and increase spending power, which in turn boosts output.
In this vein, PwC’s Golden Age Index assesses the impact of older workers on different aspects of a country’s labour market, including employment, earnings, the gender gap and participation in training. Iceland topped the 2018 index with 84% of the 55-64 age range employed, compared with the OECD average of 60%. New Zealand was second (78%) and Israel (66.8%) took the final podium step. At the other end of the scale were Luxembourg with 40% of the same age group employed, Greece with 37% and Turkey with 34%.
Scientists at Yale have developed a blood test that can estimate a person’s life-expectancy. The test involves the analysis of nine biomarkers in the human body that indicate how long a body is likely to survive as opposed to how long it’s been out of the womb, according to The Guardian.
Much has been written in recent years about the growth in the multi-generational workplace that will see millennials, boomers and Gen Xers rubbing shoulders for the first time. When taken together with workplace trends such as the rise in the gig economy, it’s prompted many to reassess the linear model of life that sees us study > work > retire, which, for RealKM, is a model that tends to diminish the value of people as they near the end of the work phase, which could see both organisations and society missing out on tremendous wisdom.
This is an argument also made in a recent book, Wisdom at Work, which argues that we should be seeing the rise of modern ‘elders’ who can impart distinct wisdom, especially in technology-driven workplaces that often favour the young.

June 2018

While the ageing of society has become one of the givens in today’s world, less is made of the lived experience of the very elderly in society, noted The Conversation. And although there is some suggestion that the much trumpeted steady expansion of the human lifespan has begun to slow down, the numbers of very old people continue to grow. Despite this, debates about the resourcing of universal health and social care tend not to examine the costs associated with extreme ageing.
Multivitamins aren’t helping people live longer, argued Quartz. For most people, there is no reason to take them.
The last human who was alive in the 19th century died. Nabi Tajima passed away in April 2018 in a hospital on the Japanese island of Kikaijima. At 117 years old, she was both the world’s oldest woman and the only known living person who was born in 1900 (which is, in fact, part of the 19th century). Her secret to good health? “Eating delicious things and sleeping well”, according to Quartz.
Over the past 500 years, life expectancy has effectively doubled in countries around the world.
A chorus of nursery rhymes may not be what one expects to hear on walking into an elderly people’s home, but a retirement facility London has its residents doing just that -and children are there to lead the way. The facility is the first of its kind in the UK that integrates both older residents and children into the delivery of the curriculum and elderly care. With a nursery and a care home on the same site, the children are able to visit the elderly residents on a daily basis - to the delight of both parties.
According to Issues Online, the number of people today aged 60 and over has doubled since 1980. The number of people aged 80 years will almost quadruple to 395 million between now and 2050. Within the next five years, the number of adults aged 65 and over will outnumber children under the age of five. By 2050, these older adults will outnumber all children under the age of 14. The majority of older people live in low- or middle-income countries. By 2050, this number will have increased to 80%.
In one country alone (UK), 60% of older people agree that age discrimination exists in the daily lives of older people. 50% of adults agree that once you reach very old age, people tend to treat you like a child. Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia primarily affect the over-60s, heart and circulatory diseases are the largest cause of mortality in adults over 65 and there are steep increases in alcohol-related hospital admissions for pensioners, while many older people suffer from isolation, with a third of people aged over 65 wanting to be more socially active.
A London Business School professor of management practice argued that the trajectory of our lives, professionally and personally, remains trapped in a mind-set that applied when life spans were much shorter. In her book, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, Gratton explained why lives are moving from two stages to three and what that means not only for individuals but for corporations and governments as well.
When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meagre possessions, they found a poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.
2011 saw the first baby-boomers, born between 1946 and 1964, reach 65. Over the next 20 years, what has been called the "most numerous, most successful and luckiest generation ever" will gradually move into retirement. Indeed, most wealth is owned by the over 65s, and increasingly, most of that wealth will be owned by women (see video) - a business opportunity many organisations don't seem to have woken up to yet. Globally, the number of those aged 65 and over is growing at around twice the rate of the overall population, and by 2050 nearly one in three people will be aged over 60. This is now the fastest-growing primary segment of the world’s population, and its growth rate is outstripped only by that of an even older subgroup: those aged 80 and above.

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