‘Would you like more time?’ asks Andrew J. Scott (Professor of Economics at London Business School) at the beginning of his latest title, The Longevity Imperative. ‘How about if I give you an extra hour today?’ he continues, ‘how about if I stretch the year out to last thirteen months?’
Scientific, technological and socio-cultural development has granted each of us more time than past generations, in the form of increased life expectancies. But how should we use it? Following the recent Wheeler Institute for Business and Development event, ‘How do we change the way we age?’, we caught up with Professor Scott to learn more.
What prompted you to write The Longevity Imperative?
Society tends to focus on AI and climate change as determinants in our future, but there is no debate about adjusting to longevity. We have an ‘ageing society’ narrative, which sees increased numbers of old people as a burden. I think that is a miserable and misleading way of looking at one of the 20th century’s greatest achievements.
My big insight is that the huge change is not the number of old people there are, but that whatever your age, you can expect to live longer than past generations. So we need to age differently – the first ‘longevity revolution’ has ended. The second one begins, but we just don’t see it, and that frustrates me.
What exactly do you mean by ‘age differently’?
To ‘age differently’ is to invest more in our futures at every age. My book presents concrete ways to do that. We have to make sure that we prioritise our health, wealth, skills, relationships and sense of purpose. Society has not structured institutions, norms or policies to help us do that, so how can we make sure that ageing has less of an impact on our health? How can we work or become educated differently?
What impact do you hope the book will have?
I am trying to change the ageing society narrative. The 100 Year Life got individuals on board. Now, I want to impact governments, so I’ve got to get treasuries and central banks interested in this topic. I think it’s beginning to happen in the UK where there’s no growth.
The government is waking up to the realisation that, ‘Oh my goodness, there’s nearly three million people unemployed due to long-term health concerns.’ If we can teach people how to be healthier for longer, they will work for longer, and governments need to recognise the potential inherent to this.
As you know, the Wheeler Institute focuses on business as a force for development. How do you think different demographics in developing regions of the world will be impacted by the longevity revolution?
Of the 1.3 billion people in the world who are over the age of 65, 1 billion of them live in countries that are middle income or low income, so it is quite remarkable that we think of ageing societies as a rich country problem. I often hear that Africa hasn’t got an ageing society, but every country around the world is going through the same transition, they’re just at different stages. Research I’m doing at the moment shows that the biggest lifetime burden of disease that a newborn in a low-income country currently faces is ageing related disease. How we age is the biggest lifetime challenge everywhere because globally life expectancy is 71, and 62 in the lowest income countries. We have lots of people who will live to be beyond 65 everywhere, so longevity is a really generic issue.
How do you think technological development will impact issues related to longevity?
It’s hard to predict how much AI will impact the labour market. My hunch is it is going to make human skills more valuable because AI is so good at the unhuman skills of algorithms, big data, computing, etcetera. In general, older workers tend to have better emotional intelligence than younger workers, so their skill sets could become ever more valuable.
I also think that AI can help to redefine the role of the patient, who doesn’t play much of a part in our current health system. At present, patients turn up and describe their symptoms, then receive a diagnosis and treatment from a doctor. AI can help us to claim greater autonomy in the diagnosis process. This change in role needs to come as a part of a wider shift systemic towards preventative health, and the book has a lot about that.
The book describes a three-stage life – what is that and why does it matter?
The three stage life is the big issue we looked at with The 100 Year Life. People think that our life course has always been pinned down in the same way. But in the 20th century we invented teenagers and we invented retirement, thus the three stage life of education, work, leisure. That worked well when people lived to 70 because they didn’t need to save much when they only retired at 65.
As we live longer, governments are trying to change the parameters of the three stage life. They’re saying, ‘Hey, retire later – I’ll give you a lower pension and you’ll put more in!’ I think that’s just a bad way of doing things. One of the challenges of living longer is that unless we get big productivity gains, we have to work for longer and retire later.
Whereas in the 20th century we took ever more leisure after retirement, in the 21st century we take more leisure on the other side of it. That might mean starting work later or taking mid-career breaks. It could be working part time in the final few years before you retire, or a range of other things. For me that’s the big change. And then of course that means you have something of a multi-stage life because at some point in your career you’re chasing money, other times you’re chasing change, transition, purpose, health, relationships etcetera.
How might people rethink their career choices in the context of an increased retirement age?
It’s a simple thing to say, but you have to futureproof your career. You’ve got to make sure that you’ve got an ‘age-friendly job’ that you can enjoy when you are older, or skills that will allow you to pivot as your needs change.
What’s the real point of a long life? I hear the psychologists say this over and over and I have never quite got it, but now I think I do. It is to develop as an adult. We assume old age is about decline because we focus so much on health. Actually it is a process of continued development, where you shift and change what you do, what you want and how you define yourself. Longevity is not a good thing on its own. You need to have a good life, and I think that career transition is a key part of that.
Chapter 3, ‘All’s Well That Ages Well’ introduces the idea of a virtuous circle in which people who live better want to live longer – how long do you think people should want to live?
I don’t want to be prescriptive in all this stuff. At 90, Churchill said, ‘I’m bored with it all.’ And fair enough! But if you are 120, and you’re not bored – why should you want to die? When we think about virtuous circles we think about ageing related diseases. If I’m ill in my 90s, I might not want to reach 100. But if I am well and engaged in my 90s, then bring on 100. I think the thing about age-related diseases is that the better we get at ageing, the more interest we have in it, which makes it radically different to any other disease class. It’s going to come down to this tussle between human ingenuity and human biology; will we be able to crack the code?
In the dedication you talk about being a link in a chain of life between your parents and your children, and you go on to explore many personal examples such as the nature of your mother-in-law’s retirement, saying, ‘I doubt she would last long shovelling cement’. How has that personal element impacted your thinking?
There are big issues in the world, but there are also important joys and woes very small and close to you. The 100 Year Life explored the macroeconomic picture – interest rates and fiscal policy etcetera. I have been doing that for 30 years and I was getting a little bored. My parents passed away. At the same time, I noticed my kids making very different choices to me at that age and I wondered, why is that? It is the combination of personal experience and looking at the data that led to The Longevity Imperative.
You unpack different ideas of ageing through examples of the literary past including examples from Cicero, Jonathan Swift and Oscar Wilde. What other texts or doctrines influenced your writing of the book?
Simone de Beauvoir might be the person I found most interesting because she is so angry. When I was younger I didn’t totally understand her anger, but I kind of get it now. She says we’ve got an industrial society that says people are only worthwhile if they work, and most people want to save money, get a hobby and live somewhere nice. But she doesn’t see that as an engaged, purposeful life. So, what is? I thought that was very interesting.
What would be your one message for people who don’t know anything about or aren’t actively thinking about longevity yet?
We live in a new time. The young and middle-aged can expect to become old, so you need to be different from all past generations. At every age you have more time ahead of you. I’m a different 58 year old from my father and my grandfather. And so you have to invest more in your future, and make more of a friend of your future self. If you underestimate the capacity of your later years, then you don’t invest enough in them.
The Longevity Imperative – Building a better society for healthier longer lives by Andrew J. Scott is available now
