Never in human history have so many live so long. Data suggests that if we reach 65 years of age, it’s likely we live to 85. We are living longer and we are having fewer babies.
The aging society is the fact that you have a large proportion of people over the age of 60 than under the age of 15. And it’s not just America that is an aging society, Europe, China, Japan we are an aging globe.

An aging society isn’t just about old people, it’s not just about baby boomers, gen-x will likely live longer and so will millennials. The baby boomers are an introduction to what would be a permanent shift, and the shift will utterly transform our society. How and how long we work, how we will live, how we organize our family, medical care and political lives.

We think 65 as the retirement age engrave in stone. But when social security was enacted in 1935, average life expectancy was only 62, 3 years less than retirement age. Today we can expect 15 years beyond traditional age.

Few of us imagine retirement as a vacation anymore. Most of us haven’t saved enough, and we are all worried about social security and medicare.

Children in American society historically have only suffered losses that relate to their parents in the most part but today and tomorrow, they gonna loss of their parents, grand parents and great grandparents.

The world we live in, the people we become demographically speaking are way different from 1935 or 1950 or even 1970 but our institutions, economies, policies, social security, medicare, community, work all were design for who we were 50 years ago. They don’t work for us today.

How will we come of an age in an aging world?

Check out upcoming articles how IoT can play a part in making healthcare affordable to all. But it’s also good to hear your thoughts regarding this.

Throughout the world and throughout history, the young have always outnumbered the elderly. Over the next 40 years, this will change, the population over 60 will grow by 1 billion to a total of 2 billion. For the first time, in human history, there will be more people over 60 than under 15. 1 in every 5 people will be elderly. In 1950, there were 12 working people for every elderly person. Today, there are 9 and in 2050 there are 4. More money out and less money in.

It will have a big impact on economic growth, savings, debt, investment, consumption, labor market, pensions, taxation. Social implications such as family compositions, living arrangements, housing demand, migration trends and health care are also affected. This includes political impact such as voting patterns and political representation.

However, the elderly bring – inspiration, work ethic, leadership, wisdom, values, culture, tradition, legacy, But with age, comes health concerns, vulnerability, and uncertainty. But with less money, how can countries afford to look after the elderly? And how we will afford to look after our own health, our education, afford to spend on technology, arts, and science? Afford to spend on our children and their futures?

We could consider these steps:

1. Integrating aging into all aspects of development
2. Involving the elderly more in major policy decisions
3. Policy reforms in existing pension systems
4. Making healthcare affordable to all.

And we can do this, not just because we care for them because we also care for those to come.

Check out upcoming articles how IoT can play a part in making healthcare affordable to all. But it’s also good to hear your thoughts regarding this.