Planning for Life

By Harry S. Margolis

For better or worse, the world is getting older. In 1950, the median age in the United States was 30 and in Europe, 29. Today, it's 39 and 43, respectively. In the United States, it actually dropped a bit for two decades, with the baby boom, reaching a low of 28 in 1970, before increasing again.

The aging of the world population can be explained by a mixture of longer life expectancies, lower birth rates, and lower child mortality. As borne out in the following chart, these factors have affected the median age in all the world except for Africa.

By Harry S. Margolis

Organized by the indefatigable Tim Driver, founder of RetirementJobs.com, the Age Friendly Foundation, and AgeFriendly.com, hundreds of aging professionals, academics, medical providers, journalists and government leaders met at the Seaport Hotel on October 23rd to discuss the future of aging in Massachusetts. Driver's incredible slate of presenters included Mayor Marty Walsh, Governor Charlie Baker, industry leaders, Boston Red Sox President Sam Kennedy, and Alexander Kalache, MD, Co-President of the International Longevity Centres Global Alliance.

There were a few common themes about the challenges of our increasingly older population voiced by speakers from many different perspectives:

• Inequity is a big problem; the wealthy can buy the care they need, there are some programs for the poor, and not much for the vast majority of Americans.
• We have over-medicalized elder care and invested too little in social supports; this is a very expensive approach.
• We operate too much in silos—health care professionals not talking to social service providers, who are not talking to private industry.
• Social isolation versus participation in community is a big determinant of our welfare as we age.
• Any solution will have to come through public-private partnerships.
• Workforce—if we don't expand and better train and compensate the workforce that provides care to seniors, nothing else will work.

Here are some of the highlights:

By Harry S. Margolis

For those of us in Massachusetts who expect our state to score high in every state-to-state competition, the recent US News & World Report ranking of the best states for aging is a disappointment. In a ranking that doesn't even take into account our winter weather, we rank 27th out of 50 states.

Factors in the ranking of the best states for aging

The ranking takes into account several factors, including the quality of nursing homes and medical care, life expectancy, and the cost of living. We score well on life expectancy (12th), Medicare quality (4th), percentage of seniors who are able-bodied (15th), and primary care (6th).

By Harry S. Margolis

During a recent bike trip in in Vietnam, I was struck by how youthful the country seems. The streets are full of young people on motor scooters. We were told that in a country of 95 million people, there are 35 million motor scooters (called Hondas just like we call tissues Kleenex). Riding the country's web of rural lanes, we passed hundreds of schoolchildren who waved and called “Hello” to us.