May 2024

Generational AI: Digital inclusion for aging populations

As artificial intelligence (AI) applications become ubiquitous in products and services, it is more important than ever to ensure that they are appropriately aligned for positive use and avoid exacerbating social exclusions for an aging population. Based on discussions with leaders in equity, AI, and aging, and additional research, Generational AI: Digital inclusion for aging populations outlines the unique considerations for older adults within the AI lifecycle, barriers to digital inclusion that older adults experience regarding AI and suggested near- and...

Germany poised for stagnation with ageing population, warns IMF

The eurozone’s largest economy is heading for stagnation amid a period of rapid population ageing that will place intense strain on the state and public finances, the International Monetary Fund has warned. In a snapshot of the German economy, the fund said economic growth would slow markedly due to the generation of baby boomers born between 1946 and 1964retiring and the recent waves of immigration, which have hitherto replenished the labour force, subsiding. The Washington-based organisation, which has 190 member countries,...

Why half of Japan’s cities are at risk of disappearing in 100 years

With contributions from around 370 celebrities, intellectuals and cultural figures of the time, the April 1920 edition of the now defunct Nihon Oyobi Nihonjin (Japan and the Japanese) magazine ran a special feature on what the country would look like in 100 years. Sakio Tsurumi, then-director of the government's Forestry Bureau, predicted that the nation’s population would grow nearly five-fold to around 260 million by 2020, approximately double what it actually is now. Professor Riichiro Hoashi of Waseda University expected...

Up to 246 million older people may be exposed to heat risk by 2050 due to global warming

By Bob Yirka   A team of Earth and environmental scientists at the CMCC Foundation–Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change, working with a pair of colleagues from Boston University, has found evidence suggesting that as many as 246 million people around the globe may be at risk of heat exposure by 2050 due to global warming and an aging population. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes how they used climate models to assess global hotspots and compared them with population projections for...

Centenarians Are on the Rise: How Living Longer Will Affect Society’s Economics

By JayDee Vykoukal   According to a Pew Research Center analysis of United States Census Bureau data, the number of Americans aged 100 and older is expected to more than quadruple over the next three decades. The population is projected to reach 422,000 in 2054, up from an estimated 101,000 in 2024. These centenarians aren’t the only aging demographic on the rise. The 2020 U.S. Census count found one in six Americans is over 65, compared to less than 1 in 20 in 1920. Older...

Retirement Planning: Does It Make Sense to Plan to Age 95?

BY  TED GODBOUT   A new report out this week provides an interesting take on whether it makes sense for retirees and near-retirees to base their retirement planning under the industry-wide assumption that they will live to age 95. Instead of simply using age as a factor in determining how much to save and spend for purposes of retirement planning, the report by HealthView Services examines the financial impact for clients of planning to age 95 versus beginning the discussion using actuarial...

Experts warn ‘silver tsunami’ poses threat to the economy as over-65s are set to outnumber children by 2030

Seniors are set to outnumber children for the first time in American history within six years, as experts warn that the country is about to struggle with a dramatically aging population. The 'silver tsunami' has already seen the burden on working age people double since 1960 when there were six workers for every over-65. And millions now risk having no-one to help them as the poorly-paid care industry is squeezed out by better paid jobs in a tight labor market. Economists have been...

Older Adult Employment: 2021 Annual Report

By SeniorLiving.org Workers over the age of 55 represent a huge and essential segment of the American economy, and their influence is growing. In fact, by 2030, one in four U.S. workers will be 55 or older. In part because they account for such a large share of the workforce, older adults have been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic, and many states had a decline in the number of workers over 55 remaining in the workforce. But overall, the 55-and-older...

The growth of the older workforce

By Richard Fry & Dana Braga The share of older adults holding a job today is much greater than in the mid-1980s. Some 19% of adults ages 65 and older are employed today. In 1987, only 11% of older adults were working. Today’s share is similar to that of the early 1960s, when 18% of older Americans worked. As the employment rate among older adults has gradually risen since the 1990s, employment among younger workers has followed a different pattern. Jobholding...

The US prison system is turning into a de facto nursing home

In late 2018, Richard Washington sent a memo to the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit with the subject line “Notice I am being killed.” The 64-year-old man, who decades earlier was convicted on armed robbery charges, was serving a 63-year prison sentence in Arizona. In his letter, he alleged that the Department of Corrections was refusing to give him medication for his various health issues, which included diabetes, hypertension, and hepatitis C. Because of the lack of...