“I’m gonna live forever,” Irene Cara sang in the movie Fame. “I’m gonna learn how to fly.” Both are a physical impossibility, but that’s pop music for you. If Cara had sung the slightly less catchy, “I’m going to live till I’m 80, or maybe 100,” she would have been onto something—if a little less ambitious.
Fame and its avalanche of leotards and primary colors was released in 1980, when the average life expectancy was 73 years in Europe and 74 years in the U.S. By 2030 those figures will have risen to 86 and 81 (Europe is now considerably healthier than the U.S.). Across the West, more of us are getting older. More than a simple social reality, this is fast becoming a key issue for business leaders as well.
Seeing around corners is a core competency for any senior executive, as Rita McGrath argued in her seminal 2019 book called, appropriately, Seeing Around Corners. “Many of us experience inflection points as a single moment in time when everything changes irrevocably,” the longtime Columbia Business School professor wrote.
“[But] when you look at the true nature of inflection points, you see a different story. It is similar to the way in which Hemingway’s character, Mike Campbell in The Sun Also Rises, responds to being asked how he went bankrupt. ‘Gradually,’ he says. ‘And then suddenly.’ ”
Artificial intelligence has reached its “suddenly” moment, and dangerously so, according to those who worry about bubbles. Climate change and sustainability have been in the “gradual” phase for decades, much to the frustration of environmental activists. “Longevity”—the challenge of aging populations—is in the “gradual” phase. It could move to “suddenly” rather more quickly than many imagine.
Read more: The $20,000 longevity weekend for those who recognize that more time is the ultimate luxury
More than one‑fifth of the European Union’s population is 65 or older. In the U.S. the figure is one in six, or around 61 million people, a number that will jump to over 80 million by 2050. The number of people who will celebrate being 100 years old in America is set to double.
In the EU, the proportion of working‑age adults between 15 and 64 will shrink from 64% of the total population in 2022 to 54% by 2100. In 2023, the EU’s total fertility rate fell to 1.38 live births per woman, the lowest level recorded since 1961, when the gathering of comparable data began, and well below the 2.1 needed to keep the population stable without migration. Populations are falling in Portugal, Spain, Germany, Italy, and Poland, according to World Population Review. Without immigration, this downward trend will become more precipitous.
80%
Of the average individual’s health care spending occurs in the last decade of life
1.38
Live births per woman–the EU’s fertility rate in 2023
54%
The proportion of working-age adults in the EU by 2100
How are we readying ourselves for a world where birth rates are declining, workforces are aging, and “old age” liabilities, such as pensions and acute health care, are stretching resources? The “cost” of old age is currently too high, while the “opportunity” is underexplored. If we can stay healthier for longer, reskill, and rethink what retirement looks like, it is quite possible for millions of people to work until they are 80.
Andrew Scott, economics professor and longevity expert, is a principal scientist at tech billionaire Larry Ellison’s institute in Oxford. Ellison, who once said, “Death has never made any sense to me,” has put generative biology at the heart of the institute’s work, investing hundreds of millions of pounds of his own money in research. He is right to do so.
“A child born today has a 50% chance of living until they are 90,” Scott told me.
“Nearly all employment growth in the future will come from people over 50. For example, in the U.K. at age 50, around 80% of people are working; by age 65 that figure has dropped to 30%. If we could just halve the rate of decline, we would see a 4% boost to GDP. That’s the closest thing to a free lunch for growth that I can see.”
“A child born today has a 50% chance of living until they are 90…”
Andrew Scott, economics professor and longevity expert
Sir Jonathan Symonds, chairman of pharmaceuticals giant GSK, has argued that our “health span”—living well—is as important as our life span—living for a long time. At an event I chaired with business leaders and policymakers, hosted by Oliver Wyman, a consultancy, in London last autumn, it was revealed that more than 80% of the average individual’s health care spending occurs in the last decade of life.
If we could identify markers of future health issues and act early, aging would not be dominated by the language of burden and decrepitude, Symonds argues. By recognizing lifelong health and the broader concept of well-being as a social and economic good, “How long am I going to live?” becomes important whether you are 18 or 80. All those young people sweating it out at spin classes are to be applauded. Free gym memberships from employers are more than a fluffy perk.
Research collated by Oliver Wyman for Fortune reveals that wellness rituals are booming, particularly for the wealthy. Asked whether their overall well-being was likely to improve over the next 12 months, 65% of high-income groups said yes. If you have time, funds, supportive family and friends, and local facilities, you are likely to be healthier than if you do not. Lower-income groups are often left filling in the form with “none of the above.”
“The longevity economy is the next growth frontier, but health care’s K-shaped divide is widening into two separate worlds,” Rupal Kantaria, partner at Oliver Wyman Forum, told me. “High-income consumers invest in customized prevention and longevity. At the lower end, illness and debt pile up. The middle is caught in between—too affluent for safety nets, too stretched to get ahead.”
Aging populations demand new responses from governments and businesses—from workforce planning and preventive health care to new models of society and the built environment plus more positive lifestyles. As with AI and climate change, demography is a “total effect” phenomenon, obliging us to change how we think about every function we undertake and every strategic plan we execute. This is a conversation that needs to involve all age groups—from teenagers contemplating a 60-year working life to the over-sixties who want to live a healthy and productive final three decades. We may not live forever, but most of us will live for an awfully long time.
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