How to succeed in this 100-year life – start young, save more and eschew retirement
Health and wellness receive regular attention, but financial management needs a rethink too, writes David Dodwell
Forget millennials and the ageist obsession with youth. The future is old (and female), and the challenge is to ensure living beyond the age of 100 proves to be an opportunity and an asset, rather than creating a chain of problems and burdens.
For me, this challenge is both urgent and immediate. I am coming up close to 68, and feel nowhere near the end of my usefulness. But all around me, opportunities to remain useful are shutting down. I speak for growing millions. In 2015, an estimated 617 million people were over 65 (about 8.7 per cent of the world’s population), but by 2050 this will rise to 1.6 billion, accounting on present forecasts for 16.7 per cent of the world’s population.
More than 128,000 Hongkongers ill-prepared for 100-year life
If the lives of the elderly are not to be “nasty, brutish and long”, then a revolution has to occur – in the workplace, in the education sector, in medicine and in our social institutions. That is why I am in Singapore at an Economist Intelligence Unit conference on longevity – “Is Asia ready for 100?”
The answer is, of course, a resounding no – we are not ready. But be in no doubt, it will be in places such as Singapore – the third most aged society on the planet (behind Japan and Hong Kong) – that we either succeed or fail. And at my age, I just hope they succeed, quickly.
Anchoring the conference was a valuable piece of EIU research on Singapore, funded by insurance group Prudential, which began from a recognition that by 2030, 900,000 of the island economy’s 5.6 million population will be over 65. In Japan, already a quarter of the population has passed 65.
As Singapore surgeon and author Kanwaljit Soin, 76, noted: “We need to recognise that older people are the only naturally increasing asset in the world.”
However, the challenge even in carefully planned Singapore is to make sure these people are truly an asset, rather than an ever-increasing burden. “For the rising longevity to be a positive experience, people in Singapore need to build strength in four key areas that are known to contribute to the length and quality of our years: supportive relationships, health and wellness, financial stability and work,” says the EIU report.