The Future is Old
People over 50 hold the keys to the emerging longevity economy, while companies focused on AgeTech will thrive in “hyperageing” societies
The future is old. It is also gray and female, and it may already be here.
We find ourselves amid an extraordinary transition, but few of us are aware of the extent of this change or fully understand its profound implications. Demographically speaking, the world is getting old, fast. This fact alone positions us for a world that, in the immediate future, is projected to look vastly different from today. This demographic change will come to dictate the majority of products we use, the cities we build, and even the lifestyles we choose to lead.
In this new order, adults over the age of 60, with women predominating, will make up the largest slice of the population. Yet, very little is written about the topic of longevity. Even less effort is put into better understanding and adequately serving the above 60 community, which currently is the most affluent and underserved segment of the population.
Is the world growing older?
According to a report by the Milken Institute, by the year 2050, the global population of people over 60 is set to double in size from 1 to 2 billion; at the same time, it will become equal in number to those 15 and younger. Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott’s book The 100-Year Life explains that “…a child born in the West today has a more than 50 percent chance of living to be over 105…” while 100 years ago that percentage was around one. This explains why we see very few centenarians around today, but also lets us know that in the future, reaching the 100-year mark will be a common and unsurprising event.
Joseph Coughlin, MIT researcher and director of the institute’s AgeLab, gives us three good reasons for the shift toward an older population. In his book, The Longevity Economy, he says that people live longer — only 100 years ago we were not expected to live past 50. In addition, fertility rates have decreased across the board on a global scale. As of 2015, we were having 2.1 children per woman, which is considered “below replacement” rate to keep the population stable. Finally, a third contributing factor to global aging is the post-war generation of baby boomers. The extraordinarily large number of babies that were born in a short time period resulted in a big chunk of the population entering its golden years all at the same time.
Why should we care?
The transition to an older population matters for a handful of reasons. Imagine a future where most people live beyond 100; what would that look like? John Immitson, co-author of Empty Planet, points out that from a macroeconomic perspective having fewer people being born year after year equates to fewer people producing and consuming. He says, “…[with] fewer people being born, you have fewer people available, A, to pay taxes to support health care and pensions for all those old people, and, B, you have fewer people consuming, and consumption remains, you know, whether for good or for ill, the most important economic force driving a society.”
However, research shows that consumption-wise, the older cohort spends significantly more than those aged under 40. In fact, currently, in the US alone, consumers over 50 control 83 percent of all household wealth and are worth about $8 trillion; this is roughly 40 percent of US GDP. This older cohort controls about $4 trillion in Europe, which is equivalent to 20 percent of its GDP.
And this is particularly important for new products and services hitting the market.
Why? Because of the mind-boggling fact that advertisers in the US spend 500 percent more on millennials than all other groups combined. Advertisers are, in essence, leaving money on the table, and it could be that this focus on millennials is a contributing factor for why consumption is usually associated with younger generations. The argument to be made is that perhaps in a world with fewer young people, focusing efforts on catering to older, willing, and able consumers could prove far more fruitful than trying to increase birth rates (efforts that require decades for results to become noticeable.)
Now here are some fascinating facts about the so-called “Longevity Economy.”
Life does not end after 50, but it may well begin then
We don’t just tend to live longer lives; we now live healthier, more active lives. Boomers are a contingent of active, productive people who are working longer and taking the economy in new directions by continually changing the idea of what it means to get old. Nevertheless, a seriously youth-obsessed culture like the one we live in tends to shut out the entire over-50 population. Blatant age-discriminatory practices, antiquated perceptions, and generational institutional separation are also to blame for this. Consequently, high-impact desires, hopes, and dreams of an entire group are not being met, resulting in social exclusion, mental isolation, and reduction of life-satisfaction among people who may have 30 or more years to be lived. Women especially, after turning 50, seem to fade away from society.
Grey is the new green
As the prison of stereotypes collapses and biased perceptions and fallacies about what it means to grow old start to diminish, more and more our society will come to see the value in these new emerging realities. Savvy entrepreneurial ventures have already found gold in the Aging Economy.
Aside from the myriads of pharma companies currently in development, we see a lot of exciting offerings tackling inherent problems and developing ancillary services that, along the way, are defining the AgeTech landscape. Some of these include startups like Stitch, Doro, GrandPad, Silvernest, Familink, and Marvee, as well as companies that have achieved unicorn status. For example, Pill-Pack, a company recently acquired by Amazon for $1 Billion, assembles medications and delivers them in a package designed to avoid errors, while GreatCalls, a mobile wellness service oriented at the needs of older customers, was acquired by Best Buy for $800M, their most significant acquisition to date.
The future is here
The consequences of a lengthened lifespan — which by no means should be labeled as pernicious — will not only affect the elderly but also, in the near future, the lives of every single generation living on the planet. Issues from people living so much longer will include these:
· Generational complexities that stem from newly emerging social structures
· Work-life redesigns to accommodate multiple life stages (as opposed to the traditional three — childhood/educational, adult/labor, and elderly/retirement)
· The role of government in forming policies in addressing issues such as city planning and the ever-changing labor market dynamics.
If you want to get to know more about the topic, this article by Dominic Endicott and John Sviokla is excellent.
One thing is for sure, the future is here, and it belongs to those who understand that the past is not a predictor of what’s to come, and dare to act on that belief. At the end of the day, all human progress got built, just like houses, from the bottom up (starting with every citizen), not the top down (waiting from the governmental authorities to take action) and I believe the same will happen with this next revolution ushering us into the age of agelessness (pun intended).
