If you’re looking to add to your Holiday reading list, I highly recommend a book I just gobbled up – The Longevity Imperative by Andrew Scott. It’s an insightful read that sheds light on how to Age Better and plan for working & contributing during a life span that is becoming quite daunting.
Good news is we’re living longer. In fact, young Americans now have a 50% chance of living to aged 95. But how to chart a path that enables us to enjoy these extra years – not just w/ good health, but w/ purpose & value?
Scott rightly points out that the Aging Society has largely been portrayed in a negative light, w/ the assumption that older people are not productive & therefore a drain on the economy (think rising health care costs & social security deficits).
How wrong that narrative is.
The Longevity Dividend offers a huge opportunity.
Older workers can represent the single biggest entry of workers into the economy and ignite a financial boon. As Scott notes, if the 50 to 64-yr age group can be employed at the same rate as the 40 to 49-yr cohort, there will be an influx of 8M workers – adding $1.15 Trillion in GDP each year.
Ironically, Scott (perhaps because he’s a Brit) chides governments for not doing enough to help encourage this. He calls on governments to treat this as a “moonshot” initiative – akin to sending men to the moon…
For me, I wonder why leading Tech companies are not doing more.
Of course, tech billionaires have been leaders in funding geroscience research, which is succeeding in keeping us all alive longer. Now the need is to help us all age better by being more productive and financially secure.
Think of the HR and ecommerce marketplace that could be built and optimized to allow older workers to better search for, find jobs and remain productive as they age.
Leading tech companies can and should take the lead – offering redesigned jobs that offer reduced hours and wages for older workers (across all job functions). This is already being done in aging countries such as Japan.
No doubt, there will be several leading HR Tech companies that seize up the opportunity and begin to model the way. As a friend of mine recently said – the Business of Aging is upon us and there should be no better catalyst than the Silicon Valley community.