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As a graduate student in the early 2000s and in my early 20s, when people asked me what I was in school to study, it was a rare day when responses to the word gerontology were something other than, “What’s that?” And often once people learned what it meant, I received a follow up question, usually posed with a scowl of incredulity: “What got you interested in that?”
Since that time, aging has moved out of the shadows and taken center stage as a topic of critical focus in mainstream media outlets, even in the New York Times and The Atlantic, on a near daily basis. New online publications have been introduced specifically to highlight popular issues related to aging, and media outlets targeting baby boomers in particular have gained significant attention, like www.nextavenue.org. Even the Wall Street Journal and Forbes have jumped on the bandwagon.
Despite this growing attention, young adults still view aging issues as largely irrelevant in their lives. And this is a serious problem.
I teach undergraduate students who are in their late teens and early 20s. When I ask students about their life plans, like what they think they will be doing when they are “old” (you know, like 50!), they say they want to be retired, relaxing on the beach, spending their days hanging out with grandchildren, and enjoying life. But when I break the news that that likely means that they will be working for maybe 25 or 30 years, and then perhaps retired for another 40, they realize they might need to rethink things. The chances that young people today will live to be centenarians is much higher than any previous generation, particularly those young people who go on to obtain college degrees. Extended human longevity is highly stratified, but all young people today should be planning for their future with the idea that they are likely to live well into their 90s.
But they aren’t planning.
For most of human history, later life was usually a fairly brief period, if we were lucky enough to make it there in the first place. The idea of an extended period of retirement is brand new, so it makes sense that we haven’t really figured out what we should expect. People who are retired today left work in their 60s, making room for younger people who needed jobs. And a huge number have gone on to spend three full decades in retirement, placing strain on public and private pension programs. Many without pensions have significantly outlived their resources and rely entirely on Social Security to survive, even those who saved what they thought would be enough money to last. One in ten older adults make less than $10,000, and half live in households that bring in a gross income of less than $2,500 per month.
Young people today are likely to live even longer lives than those who are currently at ages we consider “old.” And there’s an important reason they should be thinking about that possibility now beyond just finances alone. Young adults can revise the script of their life paths unfolding in light of the extra time they will have in later life. Older people today didn’t think they were going to live as long as they have. Young people today know better, and should do something about it.
If we planned for a life that was 7 decades long, it might make sense to hurry through school, get a get a job that paid well enough to save for 10 to 15 years of retirement. But, what if you knew you had at least 90 years? Or maybe a decade beyond that? What if most of those years could be (relatively) healthy ones? How might you rescript your life? Frankly, we should all be considering this, even those of us in our middle age years. But we’re not. And it is robbing us of the ability to ensure older adults are able to have meaningful and valuable roles in society.
A student in my class told me that she doesn’t know any “old people” who are aren’t sick, so why should she think about old age as anything other than something to dread – she has no examples. But perhaps that is a useful example. If we accept that our lives are likely to span for nine or ten decades (or perhaps longer!), we should be doing things throughout our lives to maximize the quality of all of those decades of life. To be clear, not everyone has the privilege of control over their lifestyle. Lacking adequate income, having a physically demanding job, lacking access to high quality food and childcare, and living in places that are not safe does not set people up for doing much more than surviving in later life. And addressing these issues is a critical part of enhancing opportunities for older adults. The 2008 recession contributed to these issues in a significant way.
But, what if all teenagers and young adults had a more accurate perception of their own longevity potential, and realized that most have some control over shaping those years (and by the way, genetics plays a very small role in shaping their future longevity)? They may make different choices about how to spend their time, particularly their early years. Taking the time to get an education might seem more worth it if they consider the investment in a work life that may extend for 50 years. Doing things they do have control over to make sure that they preserve their physical health, and cultivating meaningful relationships with friends and family, and taking the time to intentionally consider the kind of old person they hope to become one day can dramatically alter the paths their lives take.
We cannot minimize the very real challenges that come with aging. Even those who make the best decisions have bodies that break down, and even major scientific advances aren’t likely to eradicate decline in physical and mental function as we get older. But our later years increasingly have the potential to be the best years of our lives – a time when we’ve accumulated immense wisdom and experiences, and for many, freedom from traditional career and family obligations to engage in meaningful and productive ways. Our next US President will be 70 (or nearly 70) upon entering office. What our future elders can do to make the world a better place depends entirely on how well they prepare for their elder-hood today.
