How do we ensure security and well-being in older age?

I’m glad the question said “older age” rather than “retirement”, though using “older” rather than “old” is a politically correct tic. People still get old.

The answer is that the end of the question, “in older age”, is part of the problem. The way to ensure security and well-being for everyone is to make sure that everyone plays a full part in society. Old people, especially retirees, are treated differently from others with little reason, except that they are often unable to contribute economically in the same way as younger people, and are thought to deserve support in recognition of their past contributions. However, on this is built an unwholesome apparatus of social exclusion that would not be tolerated if it were directed at ethnic minorities or the disabled.

Fortunately, the problem will partly solve itself. As population change renders the current system of taxation to provide subsidies for older people economically unviable, older people will be forced back into work. At the same time, the declining pool of younger labour will force society to accommodate them. In any case, the older generations relative power will grow through sheer numbers and financial clout, and they will in any case welcome not being put out to pasture for as much as half their lives, a pretty dull prospect.

Government could help by enforcing anti-discrimination on grounds of age, and abolishing the old age pension in order to fund proper benefits for those who cannot work because of physical or mental disability, whatever their age.

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Last updated 2005/02/27