Articles
Aging In America
NEW RESEARCH PREDICTS LONGER LIFE EXPECTANCY FOR AMERICANS, HIGHER OUTLAYS FOR MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY
(excerpts from MacArthur Foundation press release)
Current government projections may significantly underestimate the future life expectancy of Americans, according to new research from the MacArthur Research Network on an Aging Society published in The Milbank Quarterly. The research finds that by 2050 Americans may live 3.1 to 7.9 years longer than official government projections, resulting in sharply higher costs for government programs that serve older citizens. The findings are based on the premise that the risk of death in the coming decades will be reduced by accelerated advances in biomedical technology that delay the onset and progression of major fatal diseases or that slow the aging process.
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“This is the first published scientific evidence demonstrating how interventions that slow aging in people would influence the future course of mortality, life expectancy, and population aging in a single country,” said Dr. S. Jay Olshansky, Professor, School of Public Health, University of Illinois at Chicago and one of the authors of the study. “Even small changes in life expectancy produce large changes in the number of older Americans. Therefore, our projections of longer life expectancy have profound implications for America’s fiscal situation, health care system, and labor markets. How we address the challenges and opportunities posed by an aging society requires additional research and the sustained attention and engagement of policymakers and the public.”
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“By the middle of the next decade, the United States will become an aging society with those over age 60 outnumbering those under age 15,” said Dr. Rowe, who chairs the MacArthur Research Network and is Professor at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and former CEO of Aetna. In the 1990s, Rowe chaired MacArthur’s Network on Successful Aging, which found that the factors predicting successful aging are not dominated by heredity but are at least equally related to lifestyle. The work resulted in a best-selling book, Successful Aging. “Although the nation will become increasingly gray in subsequent decades, the United States is not well prepared to deal with the myriad consequences of this impending reality. If the extension of life achieved in the coming decades can be converted into healthy productive years, then these challenges of our aging country could be counterbalanced by an equal measure of opportunity and the emergence of a productive and equitable aging society.”
Read the entire study with charts and graphs here.
What will life in an Aging America be like for the elderly, and, perhaps more importantly, for the middle-aged and younger generations? As America ages, it is also becoming increasingly diverse. We are likely entering a period of rapid change in many of our society's key institutions, including retirement, education, housing and labor markets, churches, local communities, political parties, government, and the family itself. While some analysis and much political discussion has circulated around the sustainability of the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds, there has been much less work on the many critical issues surrounding the social, economic, and institutional implications of an Aging Society. Continue reading about MacArthur Foundation research here.
Regular participants at Imminst will immediately recognize S. Jay Olshansky (referenced above) as a constant voice in the pursuit of slowing aging and confronting the demographic challenges of an aging population (bio page here). As early as 2005 professor Olshansky participated in the Sunday evening text chat and discussed his previous writings about the science/philosophy of immortality. Similar topics were hashed over in a debate with Aubrey De Grey. He once again updated the community on the progress of the Longevity Dividend in 2007 and sat down for an interview to discuss the history and progress of life extension.
Books by Olshansky: The Quest for Immortality, Science at the Frontiers of Aging
Looking a bit further ahead to a time when aging might be arrested or reversed, Leonid Gavrilov has calculated population growth probabilities and found that overpopulation will not be as big a problem as most people assume:
"A general conclusion of this study is that population changes are surprisingly slow in their response to a dramatic life extension. For example, we applied the cohort-component method of population projections to 2005 Swedish population for several scenarios of life extension and a fertility schedule observed in 2005. Even for very long 50-year projection horizon, with the most radical life extension scenario (assuming no aging at all after age 50), the total population increases by 35 percent only (from 9.1 to 13.3 million). Moreover, if some members of the society reject to use new anti-aging technologies for some religious or any other reasons (inconvenience, non-compliance, fear of side effects, costs, etc.), then the total population size may even decrease over time. Thus, even in the case of the most radical life extension scenario, population growth could be relatively slow and may not necessarily lead to overpopulation."
Find the entire paper and watch a video presentation here.
Longevity advances and their effect on population was also the subject of one chapter in The Scientific Conquest of Death. Based on the mathematics of population growth and current demographic trends, author Max More dismisses any serious threat from overpopulation due to life extension, correctly pinning the problem on the birth rate.
Another in depth discussion waiting for more comments:Will ending aging lead to overpopulation?
How prepared does society need to be?
An interesting side discussion: What about prison sentences?