BY 2030, ONE in four Californians will be 60 years or older. By 2060, the percent of Californians in the 60+ age group will have increased three times faster than the total population.
People are living longer than ever. Worldwide, the average life expectancy of a newborn has more than doubled since 1900, from 32 years to 71 years. Half of 5-year-olds in the United States today will likely live for 100 years or more.
The Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL)’s mission is to ensure that these “century-long lives are healthy and rewarding.”
SCL is not a research center for old people. As SCL associate director and senior research scholar Martha Deevy explains, “We need to change the conversation from just talking about old age to the impact of living long lives across the entire lifespan.”
A new approach for an aging population
SCL has developed a New Map of Life that seeks to change social institutions, norms and policies that “evolved when lives were only half as long,” for example, the idea that people will retire and live off their savings at age 65.
With increased life expectancy, Deevy points out, people “may be living in retirement for as long as they were working.”
This fact alone requires rethinking work. “We need to have more flexibility in our work lives, to re-skill when needed, to take time out for caregiving, and to enable people to work as long as they want to work.”
Longer but more flexible work lives are also key to continued social engagement. According to Deevy, “people find meaning and purpose at work, and that’s where their friends are.”
“Social isolation is an enormous problem as you get older,” says Deevy, because families tend to scatter geographically, and the clubs, churches and community connections that once bound neighborhoods together are disappearing.
SCL’s New Map of Life emphasizes that the scale of change needed is vast, from where we live, to when and how often we continue our education, to maintaining health throughout these longer lifespans. Supporting older people is only a part of this equation.
“We won’t solve the issues of long-lived societies if all we do is solve challenges people face in the last 10 years of life,” says Deevy. “We need to invest in future centenarians.”
Nearly three years ago the state of California issued its own Master Plan for Aging (MPA). The MPA, administered by the state Department on Aging, outlines five major goals: Housing for All Ages & Stages; Health Reimagined; Equity & Inclusion, Not Isolation; Caregiving That Works; and Affording Aging.
Like SCL, the plan seeks to build a California “for all ages and abilities,” including “younger generations who can expect to live longer lives than their elders.”
Multigenerational initiatives
The MPA’s January 2023 Annual Report describes progress in creating more housing options for older adults, expanding health care and services, investing in volunteer programs and digital education and access, supporting caregivers, and providing rent subsidies and nutrition for older people.
Many of the MPA initiatives so far have focused on people who are already in the over-60 population. But Cheryl Brown, chair of the California Commission on Aging, has made multigenerational initiatives a priority as the commission continues to advise on the implementation of the Master Plan.
“I believe in the ‘California for All’ message. To that effort, I want to make multi-generational activities key,” Brown said.
“We won’t solve the issues of long-lived societies if all we do is solve challenges people face in the last 10 years of life. We need to invest in future centenarians.” Martha Deevy, Stanford Center on Longevity
Commission vice chair David Lindeman outlined a host of issues that will bridge the generations as we adapt to longer lives. To address the digital divide, for example, “younger people can provide support and help for older adults dealing with new technologies.”
Older adults, meanwhile, “have information and wisdom to share. Co-housing programs, where generations can live together, can benefit everyone,” Lindeman said.
The increase in the older population will be pronounced in the Bay Area and surrounding counties. Alameda County is projected to see nearly a 195 percent increase in its over-60 population by 2060. In San Francisco County, the number is close to 160 percent. Merced, now California’s second-youngest county with a median age of 32, can expect to see the over-60 group increase by 211 percent.
Aging in one county, however, may not be the same as in another or even for people within a few miles of each other. Financial and social inequities can result in vastly different life expectancies. The MPA Annual Report found “an increasing mortality gap between the highest and lowest income census tracts (11.5 years in 2019 to 15.5 years in 2021)” as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Lifespan inequities deepen
The pandemic also exacerbated existing disparities between Black and white Californians, who in 2021 had life expectancies of 71 and 78.7 years, respectively.
SCL’s Deevy confirms that longer lives are “not a privilege afforded to everyone these days” and that the changes in infrastructure and support for populations of all ages and ethnicities are critical.
Lindeman notes that “inequities ranging from income to housing resources to food resources have an even more exponential impact on older adults.”
One small step in the right direction, highlighted in the MPA annual report, is the expansion of the CalSavers program, which helps workers who don’t have retirement programs as part of their jobs save for retirement.
As governments, organizations and institutions work to tackle the new longevity, individuals, too, need to think about lifespans differently. Deevy tells her 21-year-old and the undergraduates on the Stanford campus to “join clubs, make new connections, and keep the ones you have close to you.”
As for work, “plan on a couple of different careers, which means you don’t have to get hung up on the first one. Take advantage of every retirement savings vehicle you have.”
Individuals who understand at an early age that the odds favor a long life may be motivated to do things differently than, say, many baby boomers did in their 20s. The Commission on Aging’s Lindeman urges young people to “be thinking about a long life from the very beginning. What you do early on, from food and nutrition and exercise to work and social engagement, will have an impact on your health and wellness over the lifetime. It’s important to anticipate the future.”