Everything Tagged with 'age'
Inside you, boy,
There’s an old man sleepin’,
Dreamin’, waitin’ for his chance.
Inside you, girl,
There’s an old lady dozin’,
Wantin’ to show you a slower dance.
So keep on playin’,
Keep on runnin’,
Keep on jumpin’, ‘til the day
That those old folks
Down inside you
Wake up… and come out to play.
Welcome to the Elderly Age
An interesting perspective in New Scientist magazine about what it means for many nations across the world who are now watching their populations grow increasingly older:
In the future, old people will be expected to stay in the formal economy for longer. The idea of a retirement age was invented by Otto von Bismarck in the 1880s, when as chancellor of Germany he needed a starting age for paying war pensions. He chose the age of 65 because that was typically when ex-soldiers died. But today in developed countries, and soon in poorer ones, women can expect nearly 30 years of retirement, and men 20 years.
There is a deal to be done: longer working in return for more, and more powerful, legislation to outlaw the ageism that blights the working lives of many in late middle age. The old will also expect a society that does not marginalise them; they will consider it a right to live in homes, cities and workplaces redesigned to meet their physical requirements.
Some worry that an older workforce will be less innovative and adaptable, but there is evidence that companies with a decent proportion of older workers are more productive than those addicted to youth. This is sometimes called the Horndal effect, after a Swedish steel mill where productivity rose by 15 per cent as the workforce got older. Age brings experience and wisdom. Think what it could mean when the Edisons and Einsteins of the future, the doctors and technicians, the artists and engineers, have 20 or 30 more years to give us.