Who You Calling Old?

People over 60 are increasingly fitter, wealthier & full of zest for life. The trend will grow stronger 

At 82, Billie Jean King, yes, she of the 39 Grand Slam titles, has got herself a new one: College graduate. Why is this making headlines? Because it rudely interrupts retirement mythology, which in US remains coloured by the golf-grandchildren-Florida idea. Or escape, from cold, from work, from obligation. The Indian version features quiet demotion to the back bedroom of the eldest son’s home, cushioned by a second one in Goa or the hills. But as some readers would know first-hand, these clichés are ageing faster than people. Well-off professionals Mumbai to Bengaluru have a very different biological curve than their parents did. If they’re going to have a long, healthy, wealthy later life, why shouldn’t it be purposeful? 

Director of the MIT AgeLab, Joseph Coughlin, underlines that a) by 2047 there will be more people in the world over 60, with more money and education than any other time in history, than children under 15, and b) the longevity economy is already enormous enough to be the third largest after US and China. This means the old story of needy older people needs to be rewritten. By businesses, employers, govts. Of course, extending working life by choice is a luxury of the higher-income, higher-education, and better-health workers. With only 12% of India’s workforce covered by a formal pension scheme, the story remains pre-industrial for most of the rest. As in, for much of human history, retirement simply didn’t exist, and old age was just the final, harder chapter of working life. 

But the ones who can choose, are perhaps the most un-herd-like generation ever. As Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott say in their influential book, The 100-Year Life, the longer your life, the more your identity reflects what you craft, rather than a reactive response to where you began. There will be a variety of careers. And while savings will provide the baseline of security, new skills and sustained relationships will count for a lot too. Indeed, research has shown that the single strongest predictor of happiness in later life is the quality of your close relationships. A 100-year-old human is still a human. 

The Book

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