Recently in the New York Times, David Brooks wrote a think piece called “The Fertility Implosion” talking about the demographic pyramid’s inversion in most parts of the world (including the Middle East and China but not yet including India). It’s a rapidly aging world, he says, and the US may gain in worldwide competitiveness thanks to its relatively slower pace of demographic inversion.
He quotes Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute who tempers that demography isn’t destiny and that you can have fast economic development with low fertility or high fertility (ex South Korea, Taiwan)… but Brooks note that, generally speaking, “rapidly aging population and the lack of young people entering the workforce could lead to long-term decline.”
Living in Europe, the demographic inversion, in which the demographic pyramid reverses, leaving many more seniors compared to youths (or, in terms of workforce, mainly more retirees vs. number of young people eligible to work), is a reality of which we’ve been aware for some time and cause for great debate. For a couple of years now, we have been debating a “decent” retirement age while keeping the social system sustainable (enough workers paying into the system to cover the retirement fund and health system among other civil structures (infrastructure, education, etc.).
Part of what is difficult for those of us following the debate is that each party shows often contradictory findings as to the realities of the economics of it all. Canadian research institutes, for example, have published a number studies that disprove the side-effects of Philip Longman’s predicted “grey tsunami” showing that this is not what will cost the most in healthcare… but as a layperson, it’s always a bit complicated weeding out whose analysis is the closest to reality or the most trustworthy.
That’s why I’d like to take on an entirely different angle.
Let me quote it again: “rapidly aging population and the lack of young people entering the workforce could lead to long-term decline.”
We are totally forgetting the valuable resource that our “seniors” represent. In the workforce as well as in society.
Our old-fashioned ideas about seniors is exhausting and wasting a real asset for progress.
1. First of all, we’re exhausting our seniors. I have spoken often with aging professionals and retirees in a number of countries and different nationalities. Many companies decide that once an employee has reached a certain age, he or she is no longer dynamic enough to help keep the company competitive. They do what they can to dismiss them and hire on younger workers.
Once someone in their 50s is looking for a job, they’re considered too old and often are unable to find a job (this is even more true for women who continue to be particularly strained by the social requirement to be young and beautiful). In France, many negotiate an “anticipated retirement” which buys them out of the workforce but which, oftentimes, entails a lower pension. Furthermore, there is a growing rate of retired women who are finding themselves in poverty, receiving, on average, 42% less than men at retirement.
Once they’ve gone through this type of second-guessing and lack of consideration, it’s no wonder that they are exhausted and dream of retirement and the liberty and respect it evokes.
2. Further, we’re wasting the valuable resources they represent and can contribute
In the past, a group’s “elders” were guides to wisdom and balance. Our democratic societies have since overturned what was at times a rigid hierarchy and norms, empowering the voice of youth and the possibility and fresh perspective it can represent. This has been a key step to progress, with young people often propelling movements (cf. social movements of the 1960s) to counterbalance the sometimes conservative reflexes attributed to the later life cycles (cf. Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory of Human Development).
Nonetheless, we seem now to have arrived at a point in which we perpetually reinvent the wheel due to lack of transmission. Lack of sharing and handing down / passing on knowledge gained by experience and reflection. Seniors’ knowledge and expertise are invaluable to companies’ performance, as are their perspective and relativism acquired by years of experience. Yet seniors seem to lose their place to younger, less experienced talents who don’t cost as much (lower pay for longer hours all in the name of future success) and who are stereotyped as more dynamic. It’s amazing that companies and society don’t calculate how much time experience can save a project and how much money perspective can bring to ventures.
Beyond transmission, there’s also the established fact that seniors represent a growing consumer group, pushing companies to create and develop new offers for this target… they are therefore a concrete motor in terms of economic growth and stimulation (cf. recently published study by Ernst & Young, “La Révolution des Services”)… plus, their insight would be a decisive advantage in developing these types of offers.
On a societal level, shutting out elders can have further unintended consequences. It can make them more conservative as they try to hold onto their former acquisitions against fears of the unknown… an unknown that is exacerbated by this same lack of transmission and exchange. They then feel disenfranchised and are likely to resist change because of it.
Instead, we should bring seniors into the debate, not as defenders of the past but as co-makers of the future. Collective progress (and/or company performance) gains when there’s debate and when ideas are challenged and confronted… and when all actors / stakeholders are implicated so as to help them endorse the new direction. Making our future a cross-generational goal can bring our elders into the debate, benefit from their know-how and perspective, and thus solidify and optimize our common responses & solutions for the issues facing our world.
How can we make it happen?
We must change what work means at their age, redefining their specific role and legitimacy.
I have spoken with many individuals of 60+ years. According to their stories, they are tired: they don’t want to deal with so much stress anymore or work so many long hours day in and day out. They tell me they can feel themselves not working as well as they used to, that they are no longer quite so efficient. As conscientious professionals, they’re uncomfortable about not performing as well as in their “peek years”. Above all, they want to avoid feeling devalued.
Meanwhile, many who have retired showcase the luxury of having free time, noting its positive impact on creativity and quality of life. Oftentimes they are also desirous of playing a more active role beyond their intimate circle, making them a dynamic part of society. They’d like to be taken for being as young as they still feel.
Others, who are retired… but continue some professional activity on a part-time basis, let me know that they feel better than ever; that they have worthy goals to meet without the exhaustion they could no longer bear due to the physical realities of their age.
For me, these insights point to some initial policy making: we must allow our seniors to contribute to society while also improving their income by giving them paid, part-time roles across all professions and levels. Too tired as a policeman to continue on the beat? Pay him or her to help train new police recruits on a part-time basis. Too tired as a teacher to deal with disciplinarian problems or too many students per class? Pay him or her to give after-school help, freeing up time for the fulltime, overwrought teacher while also bringing an additional support system to help to the students (“it takes a village”). Too tired as an executive to travel so much? Pay him or her to coach, council, or transmit learning and best-practices to rising talents. Etc.
This would not be mandatory; no one would be required to do it, it would simply be an option allowing the volunteers to make more money (in addition to their pensions), share their talent, enrich the project, etc.… in short, work in a way that is pertinent for them and their situation. In this way, our seniors would be very much part of a society’s well-being, progress, and performance. They would no longer be a sign of “decline” but, on the contrary, a recognized force contributing to growth and quality of life.
But the crux of the matter is: we are getting held up by our cult of youth.
This is a subject I’ll soon tackle in subsequent blogs (this post is already long enough!) but suffice it to say here that our “Performance Society” and our “Marketing of Me” is pushing us to always pursue “youth” no matter our age:
Madonna soon to be 54 years old
It seems to me rather counterproductive to pursue youth via paralysis, nostalgia, and refusal to mature… but, above all, it seems damaging to our society to strip the benefits of age and maturity of their value.
One final point regarding this alleged “fertility implosion”: where there’s smoke there’s often a flame. If it is true that we need to be watchful over extremely low fertility rates (which is not what I have heard otherwise but…), then, beyond re-empowering seniors / age to make our new demography an asset, our other task is to do what’s necessary to make it easier to conciliate having a family and a career for both men and women!
I’d love to hear your comments. Otherwise, catch you all next week for another bite from the apple!
Talk to you then,
Eve
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