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When steadiest hands are the oldest ones
December 25, 2009, Friday
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IF your children happened to be born since the year 2000 in developed countries, they will most likely live to be 100, and they will be healthier than elderly people in previous generations, according to a recent article in the medical journal The Lancet.
The implications are enormous for everything from retirement planning and health care costs to new models for the workplace and innovative approaches to education.
"If people knew they would live to be 100, they might want to organize their lives very differently," says James W. Vaupel, a co-author of The Lancet study and founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.
According to The Lancet researchers, the gain of about 30 years in life expectancy in Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - and even more in Japan, Spain and Italy - "stands out as one of the most important accomplishments of the 20th century."
Given that individuals over the coming decade may routinely expect to work well into their 70s and 80s, what kind of environment can they look forward to?
"The good news is that the world of work is changing by itself" in ways that will make it more receptive to older employees, says Peter Cappelli, director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources.
"It's already easier to work at a distance, easier to telecommute.... The physical demands (of many jobs) are falling, commitments are shorter-term, outsourcing of all kinds is on the rise and there is more contract work.... The question is, to what extent will employers actually embrace older workers and incorporate more flexibility with respect to schedules, less supervision and more empowerment?"
One potential hang-up centers on the fact that older workers, as they stay on the job longer, are likely to be increasingly supervised by younger managers, says Cappelli.
In addition to harboring "a kind of tacit discrimination against older employees, young people also have real concerns as to how they go about managing somebody who has more experience than they do."
Vaupel concurs, adding that as people work more years of their lives, but for fewer hours per week, the workplace will need to "become friendlier and more accepting of older workers" by, for example, accommodating their desires to work out of, or near, their homes, and by changing potentially hostile attitudes among younger workers toward older employees.
Several studies have shown that "in some workplace environments, younger people try to force older people out. That has to change," he says.
The authors of The Lancet article - titled "Aging Populations: The Challenges Ahead" and led by Kaare Christensen, a professor at the Danish Aging Research Center at the University of Southern Denmark - suggest another potential change in both the employment landscape and people's lifestyles.
"Improvements in health and functioning along with shifting of employment from jobs that need strength to jobs needing knowledge imply that a rising proportion of people in their 60s and 70s are capable of contributing to the economy. Because many (of these) people would prefer part-time work to full-time work, a (growth) in jobs that need 15, 20 or 25 hours of work a week seems likely."
And if elderly people increasingly choose to work part-time, then more opportunities for part-time work might open up for young people as well.
The 20th century, the article states, was "a century of redistribution of income. The 21st century could be a century of redistribution of work" in which employment would be spread "more evenly across populations and over the ages of life.
Gabriele Doblhammer-Reiter, executive director of the Rostock Center for the Study of Demographic Change in Rostock, Germany, and a coauthor of the article along with Christensen, Vaupel and colleague Ronald Rau, sees this potential redistribution of work as a positive outcome.
"If older people work part-time, could young people work part-time as well?" she asks. "If that is possible, it would be wonderful because at the moment, the majority of working hours (occur) at times when we have so many other responsibilities, such as raising a family."
Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard sees organizations allowing employees to reprioritize different aspects of their jobs at different times - perhaps concentrating on tasks or specialties that no longer require the same expertise that was needed earlier on - or perhaps going back to school and retooling.
Older workers, she says, "have a wealth of experience and breadth of knowledge that is impressive and can be extraordinarily valuable. That has to be balanced with the need to remain current."
(Reproduced with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, http://knowledgeatwharton.com.cn. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
The implications are enormous for everything from retirement planning and health care costs to new models for the workplace and innovative approaches to education.
"If people knew they would live to be 100, they might want to organize their lives very differently," says James W. Vaupel, a co-author of The Lancet study and founding director of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Rostock, Germany.
According to The Lancet researchers, the gain of about 30 years in life expectancy in Western Europe, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand - and even more in Japan, Spain and Italy - "stands out as one of the most important accomplishments of the 20th century."
Given that individuals over the coming decade may routinely expect to work well into their 70s and 80s, what kind of environment can they look forward to?
"The good news is that the world of work is changing by itself" in ways that will make it more receptive to older employees, says Peter Cappelli, director of Wharton's Center for Human Resources.
"It's already easier to work at a distance, easier to telecommute.... The physical demands (of many jobs) are falling, commitments are shorter-term, outsourcing of all kinds is on the rise and there is more contract work.... The question is, to what extent will employers actually embrace older workers and incorporate more flexibility with respect to schedules, less supervision and more empowerment?"
One potential hang-up centers on the fact that older workers, as they stay on the job longer, are likely to be increasingly supervised by younger managers, says Cappelli.
In addition to harboring "a kind of tacit discrimination against older employees, young people also have real concerns as to how they go about managing somebody who has more experience than they do."
Vaupel concurs, adding that as people work more years of their lives, but for fewer hours per week, the workplace will need to "become friendlier and more accepting of older workers" by, for example, accommodating their desires to work out of, or near, their homes, and by changing potentially hostile attitudes among younger workers toward older employees.
Several studies have shown that "in some workplace environments, younger people try to force older people out. That has to change," he says.
The authors of The Lancet article - titled "Aging Populations: The Challenges Ahead" and led by Kaare Christensen, a professor at the Danish Aging Research Center at the University of Southern Denmark - suggest another potential change in both the employment landscape and people's lifestyles.
"Improvements in health and functioning along with shifting of employment from jobs that need strength to jobs needing knowledge imply that a rising proportion of people in their 60s and 70s are capable of contributing to the economy. Because many (of these) people would prefer part-time work to full-time work, a (growth) in jobs that need 15, 20 or 25 hours of work a week seems likely."
And if elderly people increasingly choose to work part-time, then more opportunities for part-time work might open up for young people as well.
The 20th century, the article states, was "a century of redistribution of income. The 21st century could be a century of redistribution of work" in which employment would be spread "more evenly across populations and over the ages of life.
Gabriele Doblhammer-Reiter, executive director of the Rostock Center for the Study of Demographic Change in Rostock, Germany, and a coauthor of the article along with Christensen, Vaupel and colleague Ronald Rau, sees this potential redistribution of work as a positive outcome.
"If older people work part-time, could young people work part-time as well?" she asks. "If that is possible, it would be wonderful because at the moment, the majority of working hours (occur) at times when we have so many other responsibilities, such as raising a family."
Wharton management professor Nancy Rothbard sees organizations allowing employees to reprioritize different aspects of their jobs at different times - perhaps concentrating on tasks or specialties that no longer require the same expertise that was needed earlier on - or perhaps going back to school and retooling.
Older workers, she says, "have a wealth of experience and breadth of knowledge that is impressive and can be extraordinarily valuable. That has to be balanced with the need to remain current."
(Reproduced with permission from Knowledge@Wharton, http://knowledgeatwharton.com.cn. Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania. All rights reserved. Shanghai Daily condensed the article.)
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