Essay 4

Essay 4: Individual vs Mass Longevity

Like most seniors, I think about longevity now more than I did when I was younger. For most people, longevity is the question - how much time do I have left? Clearly, if you could know, somehow, that you have 2 years, 10 years, 20 years or more left, you could plan better. However, since most people do not plan well anyway, the issue of individual longevity is only of limited concern. Further, knowing that the average lifespan of your peers increased by a couple of years, doesn’t really mean anything because you are far more concerned with your lifespan than you are with the average lifespan of your peers. I will return to the issue of individual longevity in a future essay. But, for now, I will say that the problem of individual longevity is a lot more complicated than that. And the issue of mass longevity is even more complicated and of much greater concern to the average person because mass longevity will be far more likely to affect you than individual longevity. I realize that this will require a little explaining.

I was reading a book entitled The 100-Year Life, a few years ago, as I have been thinking about longevity for a while. The book said that longevity is going to be the disruptive force of the 21st century. That caught my attention! I had been thinking about many sides of longevity from an individual perspective. But I hadn’t really thought much about the consequences for society at large.

Individual longevity mainly addresses concerns that an individual may have about how long they are going to live, how they are going to fund those years, and what their quality of life may be during that period. It may also affect the individual’s loved ones who may land up taking care of them and/or funding all those years when they are not working. But that only affects a few individuals and hence will not be disruptive. But mass longevity will be disruptive.

Yes, it is the baby boomers again. They disrupted the 1960s with their teenage hormones and now are likely to disrupt the 21st century with their extended lifespans. It isn't just their long life. It is their numbers and sense of entitlement that is going to break everything (I should mention that I am a baby boomer so I'm not just throwing stones at another generation). Breaking everything is not necessarily bad. Nor is it new. Things have been broken before. Civilizations and social forces like the Ancient Greeks, the Roman Empire, Christianity, the Renaissance, and the Rise of Science, to name of few, broke everything as well. But as stuff breaks due to the Baby Boomers longevity, there will be three big questions: 1) what caused it; 2) what will happen; and 3) what do we do about it?

The first question will be answered by the science of longevity and the sociological factors that make up the perfect storm. I can see three main factors that created the current situation. First, there was the post-World War II baby boom. During World War II everybody’s life was on hold. Once it ended, they were eager to get back to the business of creating and raising families. The economy was good and there were lots of opportunities which the baby boomer’s parents took advantage of. This created the largest generational cohort, up to that time. A second, more subtle factor, was the rise of individual entitlement. That is, individuals feel entitled to get all that was coming to them. After all you only live once. One of the many things that this generation felt entitled to was as much life as they could have. This led to advances in our understanding of health and longevity. The average life span in 1940 was around 60 years. By 2020 that number had increased to 80 years. There is more going on here than these numbers suggest. But, for now we can say that we have more seniors living longer than ever before in history. I will tease out some of the subtleties in future essays in order to cut to the chase and point out some obvious implications.

First consider the healthcare system. We are going to have larger numbers of people requiring more health care, and the government is providing it through Medicare and other programs. The longer people live the more healthcare they will need. And the more advances we see in this area the more they will want.

Next consider the economy. We will have a large portion of the population consuming resources but not producing anything. I realize that most seniors worked all their lives and contributed to programs like Medicare and Social Security. And I don’t want to take that away from anybody. But the money paid in did not anticipate the longer lifespans nor advances in medical science. So, there may be unforeseen consequences of so much nonproductive economic activity.

Then consider the political system. Winston Churchill is credited with saying “If you are not a liberal when you are young, you have no heart, and if you are not a conservative when old, you have no brain.” He may not have been the first to say that, but the statement stands on its own. Younger people tend to be more liberal, while older people tend to be more conservative. Further, older people are more reliable voters. Does this mean that the political system will gradually become more conservative as the population of seniors grows?

Finally, consider the consumer market. Baby boomers with spending money altered many consumer trends in their teen and twenties. Consider rock and roll, clothing fashions and lifestyles. Will seniors shift the economy to products and services that target seniors such as cruises, retirement communities and better hearing aids?

I have only scratched the surface here and will pick up these many threads in future essays.

This essay is about 1000 words. And the recording is about 7 1/2 minutes long.

Send an email to me at drjohnartz@gmail.com if you have a comment on any of my essays. And please check out my website at DrJohnArtz.com to see other things I have written.