The Future of Aging: A Guide for Policymakers – IMF F&D
Source details
- Canonical URL
- The Future of Aging: A Guide for Policymakers – IMF F&D
Other formats
Bibliographic details
- Authors: ANDREW SCOTT
- Published: March 1, 2020
Overview and central thesis
- The past 150 years have seen average global life expectancy rise from about 30 years (1870) to 73 (today) (Deaton 2015).
- Longer lives are, on average, healthier: the proportion of life lived free of frailty or illness has remained broadly unchanged.
- The core argument: shift policy focus from treating aging solely as a fiscal burden to embracing a "longevity agenda" that restructures behavior and institutions to make the most of longer, healthier, and more productive lives.
- Distinguish between chronological age (years since birth) and biological age (fitness and health); age malleability implies many people are aging more slowly across multiple measures.
Key demographic facts and projections
- 1870: average global life expectancy about 30 years.
- Today: average global life expectancy is 73.
- 1960: average Chinese newborn had a 27 percent chance of making it to age 65; today that probability is 83 percent and rising.
- 1965: 129 million people over 65 in the world.
- Today: nearly 750 million people over 65.
- Projected by 2100: 2.5 billion people over 65.
- Centenarians: 20,000 in 1965; projected 19 million by 2100.
- Share of world population over 65: 5 percent in 1950; 9 percent today; expected to reach 23 percent by 2100.
- In 2016 noncommunicable diseases accounted for 71 percent of deaths globally, with 78 percent occurring in low- and middle-income countries.
Diagnostic framing: aging society vs. longevity effect
- Two distinct forces:
- Aging society: changing demographic structure with higher proportions of older people.
- Longevity effect: improvements in how people age (healthier, more productive later life).
- Viewing change only as an aging society overlooks gains from longer healthy lives and misleads policy toward defensive measures rather than opportunity-driven reforms.
Common myths identified
- Myth #1: Aging is best measured chronologically.
- Chronological definitions (e.g., old age starting at 65, old-age dependency ratios) obscure biological-age differences and overstate the rise in older population when biological measures are used (Sanderson and Scherbov 2019).
- Myth #2: All countries are aging (in the same sense).
- Some countries show lower average mortality even as median age rises; proximity-to-death measures can imply these populations are effectively younger with a larger future.
- Myth #3: Japan is a harbinger (uniform preview of other countries).
- Japan’s transition has been the most pronounced among G7 since 1950; balance between aging-society effects and longevity benefits will vary across countries.
- Myth #4: Aging is a rich-country problem.
- Many low-income countries have young populations now but will age in coming decades; policy should prepare 15-year-olds today for aging well by 2070.
Employment, education, and health: pillars of the longevity agenda
- Supporting older workers
- Workforce withdrawal often begins around age 50 and is often involuntary.
- Between 2008 and 2018 people over 55 accounted for 79 percent of employment growth across Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries and 103 percent in G7 countries.
- Cross-country variation in employment of older workers is driven more by changes in likelihood of working than by size of the older population.
- Policy levers include pension generosity/availability, health and workplace support, industrial structure, job types, robotics and artificial intelligence, flexible and part-time work arrangements.
- Need to combat corporate ageism and extend disability rights and diversity legislation to protect and support older workers.
- Supporting longer productive lives (lifelong learning)
- Transition from a three-stage model ("learn, earn, and retire") to a multistage life with major increases in adult education and retraining.
- Longer careers will require flexibility for time out for retraining, family support, reorientation, recuperation, and repurposing.
- All’s well that ages well (health policy focus)
- Disease burden shifts toward noncommunicable diseases (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, dementia).
- Noncommunicable diseases are expensively and poorly managed through late intervention; shift toward preventive health care is recommended.
- Public education on activity, diet, engagement, and purpose is required, alongside new monitoring and predictive technologies (artificial intelligence and big data).
- Research into slowing the aging process (targeting aging itself rather than single diseases) should be prioritized (Ellison, Sinclair, and Scott 2020; Sinclair 2019).
Policy recommendations and institutional approaches
- Reframe policy objectives from deficit-focused responses to pro-longevity strategies that maximize healthy, productive years.
- Labor market and workplace reforms
- Encourage flexible work, part-time opportunities, and use of assistive technologies to sustain employment among older workers.
- Strengthen legal protections: disability rights extension and age-diversity legislation.
- Education and lifelong learning
- Reconfigure education systems to support adult education and continuous retraining across multistage careers.
- Health system reorientation
- Emphasize preventive care and public education to reduce noncommunicable disease burden.
- Invest in predictive and monitoring technologies (AI, big data) for early detection and intervention.
- Prioritize research on the biology of aging and treatments that slow aging.
- Policy nuance and targeting
- Move beyond policies anchored solely on chronological age (e.g., blanket increases in state pension age).
- Provide differentiated options: support those unable to work while incentivizing work for those able.
- Measurement and coordination
- Consider healthy-life expectancy as an alternative welfare measure to GDP.
- Use longevity councils to monitor progress and coordinate across government departments (example: Japan’s Council for Designing 100-Year Life).
Concluding implications
- Aging as a demographic fact is real, but the growing malleability of how people age opens opportunities to redesign life courses.
- The central policy goal: maximize the number of people of all ages who benefit from the longevity effect while boosting productivity over longer lives.
The Future of Aging: A Guide for Policymakers – IMF F&D
Content in this bundle
- حياة مديدة سعيدة
- Una buena y larga vida ● Finanzas y Desarrollo ● Marzo de 2020
- Vivre longtemps en pleine santé
- The Future of Aging: A Guide for Policymakers – IMF F&D
- 长寿且优质的生活 - 金融与发展 - 国际货币基金组织季刊 -2020年3月号·第57卷·第1期