Over at the Daily Mail, Lib Dem deputy leader Vince Cable argues that the British economy needs older workers. Here’s an excerpt:
Since 2007, for the first time in British history, there have been more people over pension age than children. Every year there is a growth in the number of elderly people relative to the number of younger working people supporting them. Every Election there is an increase in the numbers of older voters relative to younger voters.
These changes are of revolutionary importance. But whenever the subject of an ageing population is discussed, it is usually in pessimistic terms. Older people are seen as a ‘problem’ or ‘burden’ because of the rising cost to the NHS and of their pensions. …
The opportunity lies in a looming economic problem. Older people are healthier and therefore living longer. But eventually they become frail and dependent. The numbers are growing rapidly and this is where the pressure is coming on NHS and social-care budgets. Existing pensions and retirement ages mean that financial transfers are also growing. The working population to support those costs is shrinking relative to the population that needs help. …
There is a way out. If we stopped regarding everyone over 60 as geriatric we would see that there is a vast untapped potential. Our ideas about retirement were formed in an age when most employment was in ‘3D jobs’ – dirty, dangerous and demanding. That is no longer the case. We still tend to assume that older people are less capable. But there is a lot of evidence that ‘crystallised intelligence’ – general knowledge, experience and verbal ability – is unimpaired by age. …
We have a choice. An ageing population could become a massive burden. Or we could get used to the idea of flexible retirement: working longer, deferring pensions and concentrating resources on the very old.
Actually there may not be a choice. We need all the Silver Power we can get.
You can read the article in full HERE.
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4 Comments
Cable is completely right.
Yes, it won’t be easy to adopt to an ageing society but following the Ponzi scheme of an ever-rising population to support the elderly, whether it be by even higher rates of immigration or by somehow “encouraging” women to knock some more out for the empire, will be even worse.
Environmentally & socially we cannot cope with a baby boom & a soaring population. Economists who propose this as a “solution” show how cloistered & hopelessly out of touch they really are.
Far better to stop thinking people automatically become vegetables at 65 & encourage part-time & voluntary working & more saving for people to provide for their own retirement.
Yes, the elderly are more likely to be frail & have health problems than the young, but given that we are better fed, live in cleaner environments & are less hard-worked than our forefathers many are very healthy physically & mentally.
You’re going to get people, especially working-class people, who act like my granddad (who was a builder from 14 to 65), who just clock off for the last time & don’t bother doing anything again. But I do not accept that this is an inevitable fact of life because I know a lot of old-timers who are active & work in various ways, be it paid or unpaid.
I never joined the cult of Vince, but this is quite excellent stuff.
The question put by Vince Cable on the stark choice of how to award new social and human respect to the increasing legions of post 60 and 65`s, is a critically important one to ask and understand.
I make these comments:
1.Ageism must be combated and outlawed, as more over 60`s must stay in the job market, not from choice but by economic necessity during this crippling Recession.Many firms and employers still prefer more attractive younger applicants and this only serves to denigrate the vastness of the life and work skills of older persons.This age to employment map must change in the future?
2.Medical science and the new will to live a lot longer, is comprised of many factors, including health,work,diet and importantly good amounts of daily exercise.But thankfully many more people now meet that bill and as Dr Cable points out will be exercising `grey power’ from now on.
3.I believe that when over 60 year olds can make a choice about retirement,that choice, should should still remain open to them and remain flexible, as an individual matter.
4.In the UK the population of centenarians in 2007 was 9,300 and is rising each day.
5.The longevity of Harry Patch (111) and Henry Allingham (113)the last surviving veterans of WW1, is one of the best testaments in history, to old age.
6.The ratio to under 16`s and to full time earners, to over 65`s, is changing fast : and surely we will not know exactly by how much, until the results of the next Census in 2011 will tell us?
7.In Japan, the population is over 120M and double that of the UK but 23% of the people live to over 65 and it has a very high proportionate number of centenarians.
8.In the UK over 50 Million people live in England and that represents 84% of the total population.By comparison population in Scotland and Wales is very sparse save for the major Cities like Glasgow and Cardiff.What is the average life expectation for adult males in Glasgow East and North East? In Glasgow there remains a dire social need for `Well Men Clinics’ to improve health, as alcohol etc. has removed many fathers before 60.
9.The ability to recognise that `overcrowding’ in social housing is becoming one of our major problems in the spatial planning for inner Cities.
10.On the basis of housing standards alone the ability of longer life expectation for the majority of working class families, will need to be an important target for the incoming L/D Government in 2010.
Many walks of life, including politics, would be a lot better off if we craved experience rather than youth.
I ask can we learn any lessons about longevity from what has happened in Japan?
Japan has risen to a new status, since WW2, in its relationship with longevity and now claims the second highest age expectations at 81 years,in the modern world.
Paradoxically,this new longevity is attributed to seaweed,rice vodka and smoking.There were only about 100 centenarians in Japan in 1963 but by 2005 there were 25,000.
In Japan there is a `Day of the Elderly’ celebrated each year and they used to hand out free cigarettes to the seniors.
In the US one moral crusader ranked abstinence from cigarettes as the recipe for longevity.
In 1900 Lucy Page Gaston led the `Anti-Cigarette League’ in Chicago US but was clearly an obsessive and was teetotal.She also remained single.
Gaston however won her campaign and smoking in public was banned in her State in Illinois by 1907.
Gaston described cigarettes as `coffin nails’ and took exception to boys taking up the weed in early life.
She once described her fight against cigarettes as `hand to hand conflict with the powers of darkness’.
I hope President Obama remembers to pay tribute to the work of Lucy Page Gaston in down State Chicago.