October 2025

Personal and General Views on Aging, Non-Communicable Diseases, and Their Interaction as Cross-Sectional Correlates of Vigorous Physical Activity in UK Individuals Aged 50+

By Fabrizio Mezza, Daniela Lemmo, Maria Francesca Freda, Victoria Tischler, Blossom C. M. Stephan, Maria Mataró & Serena Sabatini Having more positive and less negative views on aging may prompt vigorous physical activity engagement. Moreover, positive general views of aging may be particularly important for physical activity among those who have one or more non-communicable diseases. Although we cannot infer causality, promoting positive views on aging and decreasing negative views on aging could help fostering active aging, especially among those...

Europe’s aging burden far less than US or China

Graying Europe has long been considered an outlier in global demographics – but the rising cost to its governments in terms of bills for pensions and health care are more manageable than assumed and less than in rival economies in the United States and China. In a detailed report on the rising cost to the public purse from Europe's aging population, Brussels-based think Breugel this week outlined the trajectory through 2070 using the latest country-by-country data from the European Commission. Familiar...

September 2025

Humanoid Robots Will Cater to China’s Aging Population

Robots will play a growing role in caring for China's elderly, industry insiders say, as robotics firms move to tap into the country's expanding "silver economy." Why It Matters China, like the rest of East Asia, is grappling with a flagging birth rate coupled with a fast-aging workforce. People aged 65 and older already make up about 15 percent of its 1.4 billion citizens, according to United Nations data. Demographers expect China to join Japan and South Korea as a "super-aged" society, where more...

Mortality and the Provision of Retirement Income

By Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development This report analyses the development of mortality assumptions to build mortality tables to better protect retirement income provision. Mortality assumptions are necessary to ensure the sustainability of lifetime incomes. It explores considerations and traditional approaches for developing mortality tables, as well as provides an international overview of longevity trends and drivers over the last several decades, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also details the standard mortality tables developed across...

As global longevity increases, how do we ensure workers and economies thrive?

Since becoming CEO of Mercer, I’ve travelled to more than 20 countries and met with C-suite executives and policy-makers worldwide. One topic they consistently bring up – and can universally relate to – is increasing longevity. That may surprise most people, but it doesn’t shock me. For years, Mercer has been following statistics on longevity. By 2050, the number of individuals aged 60 and older is projected to reach 2.1 billion – nearly double today’s figure. The rise is driven by significantly longer life...

August 2025

Asia’s elderly risk getting sicker for longer. Hotelier Allen Law wants to ‘bridge the gap’ between lifespan and healthspan

Residents of developed Asian economies, like Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, consistently top the rankings of places with the world’s longest lifespans. Singapore, for example, boasts an average life expectancy of 86.7 years, putting it at No. 2 behind Monaco, according to the CIA’s world factbook. Yet long lifespans come with a drawback: An extended period of ill-health or disability. Singapore’s average health span—the length of time where someone is deemed to be in good health—is 75 years, as noted...

Nigeria’s president orders speedy rollout of free healthcare for low-income retirees

President Bola Tinubu has directed the expedited rollout of a free healthcare initiative for low-income retirees under the Contributory Pension Scheme (CPS), describing the measure as essential to ensuring dignity and social protection in retirement. The President also ordered the prompt implementation of long-overdue pension increases and the establishment of a minimum pension guarantee to serve as a safety net for the most vulnerable pensioners within the CPS. The directives followed a briefing from the Director General of the National Pension...

Extending Healthspans in an Aging World

By Stephen P. Utkus & Olivia S. Mitchell Extensions in human longevity are prompting a growing interest in maximizing healthspan, or the number of years of life unencumbered by the chronic diseases of old age. This chapter reviews recent research on healthy life extension, including several measures and determinants of longer healthspans. We also provide an overview of recent efforts by medical and business enterprises to enhance longevity and healthspan, followed by a discussion of policy and workplace options to...

July 2025

EBRI: Long-Term Care One of the Most Under-Addressed Retirement Risks

In a July 22 webinar, the Employee Benefit Research Institute and Morningstar revealed that employees’ perceptions of long-term care needs, knowledge and accessibility of long-term services and supports, as well as longevity influence their financial readiness in retirement.  The webinar was based on findings from EBRI’s “Employee Long-Term Care Survey,” fielded in 2024, as well as results from Morningstar’s “The Overlooked Cost: How Long Term Services and Supports Impacts Retirement-Income Adequacy,” released in May.   “America is aging, yet nearly 40% of households...

Retirement Then, Now, and Next

By Teresa Ghilarducci & The SCEPA Team  Late Baby Boomers (age 59-67), Generation X (age 43-58) and Millennials (age 27-42) are retiring under much worse conditions than Early Baby Boomers (between age 68-76 in 2022). This fact gets obscured by research that paints an optimistic picture of retirement security that only really existed for Early Baby Boomers. Later generations have been impacted by changes to the conditions of retirement that Early Baby Boomers did not experience. This includes: the shift...