Read | hundred years of life

Author: Liang Jingyi

Source: Pin Reading, No. 4, 2020

Over the years, Andrew Scott, an economics professor at the London Business School, has been invited to various lectures to discuss the aging society, and he is puzzled that aging is always used as a derogatory term.

In his view, aging not only means that there are more and more elderly people, but also indicates that human life expectancy is increasing and living longer and longer. Not only is the end of life changing, but a completely different life will be lived as a result.

To that end, he and his colleague Linda Gratton wrote a book, Centenarian Life: Life and Work in the Age of Longevity, to explore whether longevity is really a curse. If we all live to be 100 years old, how will our lives and work change?

The "nightmare" of longevity

The pursuit of longevity is human instinct, and with the development of medical technology, all this is becoming a reality. According to Andrew Scott, since the Industrial Revolution, human life expectancy has increased dramatically, with life expectancy increasing by two or three years every 10 years.

However, this has also begun to make people worry about the arrival of an aging society - both fear of getting old and more worried about bankruptcy after aging.

In a class at the London Business School, Andrew Scott asked MBA students: "If you can live to be 100 years old, save about 10% of your income while working, and hope to receive a pension equivalent to half your final salary every month after retirement, how old can you retire at the earliest?" ”

At the moment of calculating the answer, everyone was silent, because the answer was in their eighties. Almost everyone has to face the reality of retiring at the age of seventy or eighty, and if they don't, the quality of life will decline dramatically.

The collapse of a "three-stage" life

To explain the problem in detail, Andrew Scott and Linda Gratton fictionalize 3 characters with different life spans in the book. They represent three generations:

Jack was born in 1945 and his life expectancy is 70 years; Jimmy was born in 1971 and his life expectancy is 85 years; Jane was born in 1998 and her life expectancy is 100 years.

Because they live different times, they live different lives.

Jack lived a traditional three-part life (study, work, retirement), completed his university education in 1965, and caught up with the so-called "golden age" of advanced economies when he was employed, although he also encountered the impact of globalization and economic recession, but his career was basically smooth. He was responsible for most of the family's expenses, and his wife, in addition to working a few part-time jobs, was at home to take care of the children. In 2015, Jack passed away. His financial situation is very good. Andrew Scott explains that Jack has 3 sources of pension funding: state pensions, corporate pensions, and private savings. Given years of service and Social Security, retirement is guaranteed as long as Jack saves 4% of his income each year.

But by Jimmy's time, those sources of pension funding were hugely challenged. The old-age dependency ratio (the percentage of people aged retirement as a percentage of employed persons) has doubled in many rich countries. In Japan, for example, in 1960, the dependency ratio for the elderly was 10%, that is, every 10 laborers had to support one pensioner. This data, it is predicted, will reach 70% in 2050, that is, every 10 laborers will have to support 7 pensioners. This is not just happening in Japan. According to the World Bank, China's old-age dependency ratio was 4% in 1960 and has risen to 11% by 2017.

If Jimmy intends to work until 2036, retiring at the age of 65, if he cannot get a corporate pension at that time, he can only enjoy a 10% state pension, then he will only save 17.2% of his income per year to make the pension reach half the level of his final salary, otherwise he will have to delay retirement. The three-part approach to life is already stretched thin for Jimmy, and Jane, who can live to be 100 years old, calculates that she can only achieve this goal by storing 25% of her income each year or working longer until she is 80 years old.

If the centenarian life is still lived according to the three-stage life - the first 20 years of study, the middle 60 years of work, the last 20 years of retirement - in such a long working time to maintain physical health and work vitality, is it possible?

Andrew Scott found it almost impossible, for which he introduced the concept of "multi-stage life", which refers to "a more flexible, responsive lifestyle – enjoying multiple careers and breaks and transitions in multi-stage life." In fact, we believe that this is the only way to make longevity a god-given gift."

Andrew Scott argues that the traditional three-part approach to life requires planning and reflection because it has great certainty and predictability, but the current society is constantly changing, and for a long time, we will experience great uncertainty: what kind of job will be, what kind of education will be needed, what kind of person will you become, what are your goals?

Therefore, he advises young people to explore more and find what they really like, so that 60 years of work will not be so boring. "People travel around, discovering some things in the world, and they find themselves."

Oliver Robinson, Ph.D. in psychology at the University of Greenwich, holds a similar view. He specializes in why young people between the ages of 25 and 30 feel lost and unable to find their way in life.

As life expectancy increases, people have more time to find what they like, make more choices and try.

"People always frame themselves in time, when to get married, when to look for a job, but what they really should do is find something they like." 」

It's not just young people who have to explore how to adapt to life at their centenarian age, but also adults and the elderly. In multiple stages of life, people of different ages work together. "When you put people of different ages together, the more you find that people are people, some smart, some stupid (not age-specific)." Andrew Scott said.

intangible asset

The topic of "midlife crisis" has gained more and more attention in recent years. When people reach middle age, their knowledge reserves, health status, and relationships with relatives and friends light up red lights, but they find that many things are not completed. Thankfully, if all this is placed in the life of a hundred years old, you still have the possibility of change.

The knowledge reserves, health conditions, and family and friends that lit up the red light are all priceless intangible assets in the eyes of Andrew Scott, and these are more important for centenarian life, "because these will accompany you longer."

Andrew Scott and Linda Gratton divide intangibles into productive assets and dynamic assets. Production assets include a pool of skills and knowledge. "In a centenarian life, a large amount of knowledge acquisition cannot be a one-time occurrence, and it seems inconceivable to maintain a person's long-term working life with the expertise learned earlier in the career. Whether out of boredom or technological obsolescence, acquiring new skills and new specialties will become something that people will strive for the rest of their lives. ”

In the past, people used to say "the law of 10,000 hours", and you have 876,000 hours in your centenarian life, and your chances of becoming an expert are higher.

Vitality assets include health and relationships. "It's a long life, and if it's a long, sick life, how bad it would be." If it is a life full of love and health, then the centenarian life will be much more lovely. Andrew Scott said.

On the other hand, marriage and partnerships will also be more tested. Andrew Scott and Linda Gratton predict that people are more likely to break up and divorce in their centenarian lives.

The data shows that as life expectancy increases, more and more elderly people will divorce. The reason is simple: if you feel unhappy in married life at the age of 70, when you expect to live to be 100 years old, you must make a different decision than if you expect to live to 75 years old. On the other hand, the cost of divorce will also be high. "Get along with your family and friends, and they'll stay with you longer." Andrew Scott said.

Andrew Scott, 53, began experimenting with "multi-stage life" and constantly exploring new areas. He said: "In this hundred-year-old life, if you don't choose to change, life will eventually change you." ”

Excerpt from: "Look at the World" No. 29, 2019

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