Click on table to enlarge
Now those demmed demographers (acting more and more like insurance adjusters) are telling us that old age doesn't begin after 65 years of living on this earth.
Well, I know my mind is still clinging to middle-age, holding onto the kitchen door jamb for grim life and screaming "No, noooo, don't take me yet!" - but my joints and back are saying that they're old, old, old after years of hard graft, my eyesight isn't too crash hot, everyone is complaining that I need the teev volume up too loud these days and most nights the car keys find a new place to hide.
Though I was half expecting to hear that I was no longer considered to be all that old, indeed that I could move mountains if only I really stirred myself. How else are governments going to cut back on public health services and cash transfers to retirees once the younger taxpayers consider that greybeards are too great a burden?
Or as the abstract to "Remeasuring Aging" succinctly puts it:
"Population aging is an international concern, in part because of consequences of coming age-structure changes, e.g., growth in the number of elderly, decline in the number of youth, and accompanying economic and social costs..."
And the authors' 9th September 2010 media release ends:
"And such measures have policy implications because, “slow and predictable changes in pension [retirement] age justified by an increased number of years of healthy life at older ages, may be more politically acceptable than large, abrupt changes justified on the basis of budget stringency.”
Work longer and prosper Gen Y!
No comments:
Post a Comment