Conventions, Presidents and Us
By Michael Hodin
As the two presidential hopefuls zero in on the conventions, they might also focus on what Americans over 55 really want. Given the aging of the U.S. population, older voters — who go to the polls at high rates — will be key to victory.
Yet, both candidates — and their party platforms ― seem to think appealing to older voters only means shoring up the 20thcentury institutions of Medicare and Social Security. Neither candidate has yet defined a new vision for our era of longevity, where the traditional balance of old-to-young is being upended by longer lives and fewer babies. And where we are already beginning to live our lives differently than our grandparents or great grandparents.
So what do America’s “seniors” want? What compelling vision could a presidential hopeful put forward to inspire 78 million graying Baby Boomers and their children? And in the process build a new society with relevant 21stcentury institutions? If 100 year lives are becoming the norm, how is it our politics continue to operate as though it were still 1960?
Rather, here are three different ways to appeal to older Americans that will also build a healthier and stronger society for our 21stcentury:
Longer, dynamic careers. Here’s what most politicians get wrong about 21stcentury working lives: they frame a career that goes past “retirement age” as a brutal necessity. But we are learning through survey research and real life observation that people are extending their careers not only because they need to work longer, but because they want to. The idea of retiring and playing shuffleboard for 30 or 40 years doesn’t appeal to most people. Mick Jagger, Warren Buffet, and Carmen Dell’Orefice illustrate the point. But they’re the tip of the iceberg — most of us want to be active longer, including working, even if it is different than the 20thcentury model.
Instead, aging adults want the opportunity to work longer and differently. They want to begin “second and third acts” of their careers, and move into roles where they are learning new things and mentoring younger colleagues. If we once thought of the “career ladder,” we must now replace it with a “career lattice,” which allows for a career to move in multiple directions at different times during our 100 year lives.
An engaged aging population will help drive economic growth and reduce the strain on “entitlements.” It will also enable us to focus our finite resources on those who need them most.
Medical innovation. The 20th century will rightly be remembered as the victorious fight against communicable diseases. While diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, influenza or mere infections — not to mention HIV/AIDS — were not long ago certain death sentences, today we can manage and often defeat them. This is a global success story.
The 21st century must become known as the victorious fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs), like Alzheimer’s, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes. As we live longer, these NCDs are becoming the greatest global health threat. Alzheimer’s, as one example, will double in prevalence by 2030 and then double again by 2050. Just a few decades ago, it was practically unheard of. Today, it already consumes over 1% of global GDP.
Yet instead of squaring up to take on this fight, we are recoiling from it. Pharmaceutical organizations — the engines of innovative medicine — are under constant attack. Clinton has made the war against Big Pharma one of her core talking points.
This is not only counterproductive, it’s actively destructive. Our social, economic, and personal health will hinge upon how we manage as important this war against NCDs. Policies need to be created that will enable innovation, not stomp it out. But at least is to change, forever, how we view the conditions of aging, as the new WHO Healthy and Aging Strategy asks — our skin, hearing, vision — to be consistent with longer, more active and healthier aging. I assure you, medical and health innovation to support healthier and more active lives in 21stcentury longevity is far more progressive than targeting the subsidies to pay for us when we’re sick, which is all Medicare does.
A new life course. At the beginning of the 20th century, when the Industrial Revolution was upending centuries-old patterns and traditions, a new period of life was created: adolescence. It was purely a social construction. The social and economic “facts on the ground” were changing, and, as a result, human life changed as well.
Same today with “seniors.” With longer, healthier, and more active lives to 90 and beyond have created a new period of life. We are no longer young, but we are also not ready to be “old” and withdraw and retire. We do not yet have a term for this phase of life, and, as such, we also have only a vague collective conception of it.
But, this phase of life has emerged, and it creates one of the greatest opportunities of our time. The 55-and-over segment of the population, which has throughout history been on the margins of social engagement and economic productivity, is now poised to contribute. And as that demographic makes up more and more of overall population it is essential for society to not assume “retirement and inactivity” as we age.
How can workplaces, schools, and other social institutions capture this opportunity? How can policymakers set the framework to nourish this healthy, active aging cycle? How can businesses and innovators harness older adults as employees and consumers?
These are the kinds of questions we and our political leaders will need to answer, if we’re going to create a healthy and prosperous society. Our outdated approaches are already failing. We desperately need a candidate with a new vision for our era of longevity.
Medicare and Social Security were fine for last century. What about today and our future? What does aging mean in 2020?
Originally published at www.huffingtonpost.com on July 12, 2016.
