rate. And obesity and diabetes are on the rise.’
There is no consensus on how the change affects different socio-economic groups. One data set suggests that the ‘Comfortable’ are unaffected, and that the losses are among the ‘Hard-Pressed’. Another suggests that all groups are seeing a slowdown in improvement.43
While these differences are of enormous importance to insurers, because they affect annuity payouts, they are less crucial for the rest of us. Mr Aitken explains that the chance of dying in 2018, for example, didn’t increase from the previous year. What has happened is that the forecasts for growth were too optimistic. A 65-year-old man in the UK is now expected to live to 86.5, while a 65-year-old woman is expected to reach 88.4.
Sub-Saharan Africa: The Young of the Future
Sub-Saharan Africa finds itself in a demographic bind of a different sort. Its population is expected to quadruple to 4 billion people by 2100,44 with Nigeria overtaking America as the world’s third most populous country. There is much excitement at the prospect of youth burgeoning as the old world shrinks. Tanzanian President John Magufuli has claimed he sees no need for birth control, insisting a high fertility rate will boost his country’s economy.45
Sadly, he may be mistaken. The great leaps forward made by the Asian Tiger economies came from the so-called ‘demographic dividend’: of rapid growth in working-age populations, enabling those countries to grow fast and invest, followed by sharp subsequent falls in the birth rate which boosted the skills base, because parents with fewer children could invest more in educating each one.
Sub-Saharan Africa is on a different path, of continuing population growth with no demographic dividend in sight. Its per capita income is growing slowly, and its many willing hands may not be able to find work, if they remain at low skill levels. Add to that the likely strains on the environment and infrastructure, and Mr Magufuli may come to change his mind.
The Paradox of Living Longer, But Not Being Fertile for Longer
Falling birth rates must be good news for a planet whose natural resources have been stretched to the limit by humans. And they reflect a welcome next step in the liberation of women. Almost everywhere outside sub-Saharan Africa, women are throwing off the shackles of their traditional roles. Lower infant mortality has made it safer to have smaller families. The hold of religion is waning. More women are pursuing careers. At the same time, job insecurity and the high cost of living, especially in cities where the jobs are, has left many couples fearing they can’t afford children.
Some worried governments have resorted to bribery. The Polish Ministry of Health put out a terrible video, encouraging the population to ‘multiply like rabbits’.46 Norway, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany and Russia pay ‘baby bonuses’. Some of these schemes have had limited success: France and Sweden have the highest birth rates in Europe. But not all women want to be treated like prize cows. A Danish government video, urging women to ‘Do It for Denmark’, missed the point: that many women don’t want children, and others can’t find a good father.
It may be that the post-war baby boom was unusual. Today’s combination of greater career opportunities for women, and increased financial pressures, may be returning us to an era when people did not get married, or have children, until they felt they could afford it. Some may leave it too late as a result. Others will feel liberated from the tyrannical view that there is something wrong with you if you’re childless.
In Extra Time people study longer, leave home later and may not be settled or solvent until their mid-thirties: when they may hit the hard deadline of the biological clock. That mismatch will leave some couples very disappointed.
For the foreseeable future, it looks as though we will be stuck with male fertility declining from about 45, and female fertility from around 30. In most other respects, though, we remain younger for longer.
The stages of life are changing
MY 19-YEAR-OLD GODDAUGHTER IS looking over my shoulder as I write. Will she be reading this again in 2150, when she will be 150? That is the subject of a $1 billion bet made by two American experts on ageing.
Steven Austad, chair of biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, has predicted that there will be a 150-year-old human by the year 2150, based on the many breakthroughs which are slowing ageing in mice (see Chapter 6). His friend Jay Olshansky, public health professor at the University of Illinois, disagrees. He thinks the brain will be an insuperable barrier. ‘We can replace hips, hearts and so on, but we can’t replace the brain,’ he has said.1
The two men made the bet in 2000. They each put $150 into an investment fund, and signed a contract certifying that the winner’s heirs will cash it out in 2150. They later doubled their initial investment, and now expect the jackpot to be around $1 billion. If Austad is right, someone alive today will still be around to see who wins the bet.
While we wait to see whether lifespans jump to 150, some other changes have already crept up on us. At 19, my goddaughter ought to be emerging from adolescence into adulthood. But she’s just started university, is racking up debt and expects to be living with her parents for years to come. So many people are now in this situation, some experts argue that the stage of adolescence should last until 24. That’s the average age at which children now move out of the family home in the UK, France, Germany and Australia.
The Australian professor Susan Sawyer has argued that adolescence should be extended in both directions: starting at 10,2 to reflect the fact that puberty is now starting at that tender age in some girls, and lasting until 24. Extended parental involvement through this later period can be highly beneficial, the psychologist Laurence Steinberg has argued, because we now know that the brain continues to mature into the twenties.
If adolescence now lasts for 14 years, what happens to the subsequent stages of life? They are also lengthening. We saw in the last chapter that people are having children later. Beyond that, mature independent adulthood is lasting longer too.
It’s Not Old Age That’s Getting Longer, It’s Middle Age
Last winter, a doctor friend of mine was in charge of the influenza vaccinations for the over-65s at his local clinic. A crowd of grey-haired strangers walked in. They’d never come to see him before, because there was nothing wrong with them.
These people are part of a growing group who are defying all the labels. They don’t see themselves as old, don’t act old and won’t buy products marketed at the old either.
In England, the proportion of over-65s with any kind of impairment has been falling for two decades.3 In America, three-quarters of people under 75 have no problems with hearing or vision, no difficulty walking, and no form of cognitive impairment.4 These are fully fledged citizens with plenty left to offer, not retirees on their way out. Step up a generation, to those aged between 75 and 84, and half still have none of those disabilities.
That doesn’t mean that older people don’t forget their keys, or lose concentration. But it does mean that some of our fears are overdone. In surveys, most people say they think that everyone will get dementia (or Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia)
