WASHINGTON — Octogenarians running marathons, or seniors skydiving to celebrate a birthday? Don’t be surprised. Americans are going to continue to live longer and feel better. If you need proof of that, just look at Dixon Hemphill.
Now 90, Hemphill competed in the Washington, DC Cherry Blossom 5K in April, where he beat his 2014 time by two minutes. By his own reckoning, he has competed in over 60 triathlons.
“I started at the age of 50, so I was well rested,” Dixon joked.
While Hemphill may be something of an outlier, his continued training points to the changes that will redefine old age in the years to come. The first Baby Boomers are turning 70 next year, and with that milestone comes a flood of questions about how the federal government and society in general will support and interact with a generation that will live well beyond modern life expectancies.
For the last 160 years, the average human lifespan has increased by roughly one year every four years. The upward trend is amazingly consistent, defying epidemics, famines and two world wars. While some scientists believe that the trend cannot continue indefinitely, few are prepared to bet against it, including Dr. Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging.
“Lifespan is plastic,” he said at a recent presentation to the National Press Club.
Hodes, who studied at Yale and received his MD from Harvard Medical School, has acted as director of the NIA since 1993, and has since been a prominent researcher in the field of immunology.
Hodes points to different factors driving the life expectancy trend. In the 19th century, for example, better sanitation led to a reduction in deaths from epidemics like plague and cholera. In the 1960s and 1970s, widespread vaccination campaigns eradicated smallpox and pushed other diseases like polio and tuberculosis out of the developed world. In the 21st century, preventive measures such as diet, exercise and early detection are supporting the trend.
Former President George H.W. Bush is famously active, even at 90. Last year, he celebrated his birthday by parachuting out of a helicopter. Photo by Tim Hipps, FMWRC Public Affairs, U.S. Army. Copyright retained by Tim Hipps and the U.S. Army. Link: https://www.flickr.com /photos/familymwr/
Assuming life expectancy continues to lengthen, lawmakers the world over will have to figure out how to deal with and support a graying population.
According to the World Health Organization, the global population over 60 has doubled since 1980. The WHO estimates that, within a few years, the number of adults over the age of 65 will overtake the number of children under the age of five.
With these changes come concerns that Boomers will stay at their jobs longer —making it harder for younger workers to find well paid jobs— and effectively cripple costly government benefit programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Increased life expectancy however, is not the only factor contributing to political and economic anxiety.
Of equal concern is the so-called “Baby Bust,” the decline in birth rates that followed the prosperous postwar years.
“The aging of the Baby Boom is making the number of elderly rise rapidly, while the low fertility after the Baby Boom years is making the number of workers grow slowly,” said Ronald Lee, professor and director of UC Berkeley’s Center for the Demography and Economics of Aging.
The Baby Bust is problematic because it means that fewer workers will be paying into the system at a time when more retirees than ever are collecting benefits.
Lee foresees a number of possible policy changes down the road, including a gradual adjustment of the retirement age. The American workforce is in the middle of a transition from 65 to 67, which will be completed in the early 2020s, but some conservatives politicians are already calling for another raise. A plan recently put forward by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would reset the Social Security eligibility age to 69.
According to Hodes, such changes will be needed to accommodate workers who are healthier and more active than their parents and grandparents were in their working years. While many policymakers see an obvious benefit in raising the retirement age to reduce the number of people collecting government benefits, Hodes points to the science.
“The earlier the retirement in a country, the poorer people do in terms of cognitive decline,” Hodes said.
A 2010 joint study by Robert Willis of the University of Michigan and Susann Rohwedder of the RAND Center for the Study of Aging, comparing retirees from the United States and various European countries, found a link between early retirement and problems with memory and reasoning.
These findings may mean that, despite shorter retirements, retirees in countries like the United Kingdom (where the state pension age ranges from 65 to 68) might fare better health-wise than their counterparts in more generous countries like Greece (61) and Turkey (60 for men, 58 for women).
Hodes sees the Baby Boom and coming generations not only living longer but enjoying a healthier and more active retirement.
Hemphill is living proof that this trend has already begun. He joins a growing number of active retirees, including former President George H. W. Bush, who marked his 90th birthday last year by parachuting out of a helicopter.
The nonagenarian Hemphill’s secret?
“Good diet, healthy attitude and a positive outlook on life,” he said.
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