A Conversation With Paul Irving, Founding Chair of Milken Center for the Future of Aging
Make your later years a boon, not a burden. It's your choice.
In my latest podcast, Paul Irving, founding chair of the Milken Institute’s Center for the Future of Aging and editor of the The Upside of Aging: How Long Life Is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy and Purpose, discuss both the challenges and possibilities of aging.
What to Do With Our Extra Years
Irving says that while science has done its part in extending lives, social science has not kept up. “While we may have an extra 10 or 15 or 20 years, we’re still figuring what do do with those additional years. At our stage of life the most valuable thing we have is time, but the question is how we fill that time.”
Ageism, Irving says, continues to sideline older adults. "Older adults are a fantastic human asset that is chronically underutilized.” The problem is both societal in terms of how institutions, employers and media see older adults, and personal in how we see ourselves?
He cites a study by Becca Levy, a psychology professor at Yale, that finds that how we see ourselves can have a great effect on their health. Those who see their aging in a positive light live 7.5 years longer than those who see their aging negatively, a greater impact than weight, smoking or exercise.
Have Purpose
Others have studied the impact of having purpose in life on developing dementia, finding that those who have purpose in their lives, whether working, volunteering or taking care of grandchildren, are less likely to manifest dementia later in life. “Attitude in many ways is everything. What’s above the neck, how we’re engaged, do we have a sense of purpose, all matters.”
In the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s Parting Prescription for America, he talks about how relationships, service and purpose, have direct impacts not just on the communities in which we live but also on our own health. He cites research about Americorps Seniors and AARP’s Experience Corps that finds “that people who volunteer have improved cardiovascular functions and are happier and more engaged.”
Irving believes in lifelong learning and doesn’t ascribe to narrative that after work we begin the inexorable slide to death. Continuing to be engaged “is good for the world, good for their communities and it’s good fro them.” We need to talk about a new way of thinking about our later years.
He commented that the old age dependency ratio, that there will be too many retired people in the economy as compared to the number of people working, operates on assumptions about when people start and stop working. We need to break that thesis. We need to get over chronology, counting years rather than recognizing that we are all individuals and age at different rates. The notion that age should define what we look like is “frankly ridiculous.”
Productivity vs. Reality of Aging
I raised the question of how we deal with the conflict between the fact that we know we’ll be productive for some time, but there’s a good chance that at some point we won’t be able to anymore. How do you plan for both?
Irving recognizes that a third of people over 80 and a half of those over 85 have some cognitive loss, that aging is a factor for chronic disease and dementia. “But if we’re simply defeatist about this we lose the potential and talent of older people.”
We do have to plan and be realists and accept the reality of our death. He says that’s also a great opportunity because it allows us to think about the value of these extra years and our legacies.
“As Americans, we share one thing, that at some point when we’re young someone told us ‘you should leave the world a better place than you found it’ , which does seem to cross our various divides. One of the great joys and challenges of later lives is the opportunity to contribute to the next generation.”
We discussed gerontocracy, people staying on to long, as opposed to mandatory retirement at specific ages. “On the one hand, I don’t believe in mandatory retirement,” Irving said. “We should have enough judgment and maturity to deal with individuals individually. There are older people who remain uniquely and extraordinarily valuable. At the same time that we shouldn’t judge people based on their age, generosity and concern for younger people and organizations should be part of our responsibility. Older people should happily step aside, but step into new roles. We should value mentorship more.”
He cited his own experience leaving two roles managing organizations. This opened new opportunities for him, allowing him to learn and do new things. He was proud and gratified to pass the organizations on to younger people with new ideas and different experiences and approaches than his own.
People who do not recognize this and cling to their jobs will eventually be replaced. It’s just much happier circumstance if they say they’re ready to move to the next stage.
Policy Recommendations
We closed our conversation with my two stock questions, what recommendations would Irving make to policy makers and to baby boomers and their families. Here are his responses.
To policy makers: Appoint an aging czar with the responsibility to create policies, practices, and norms across agencies to focus on healthy lifespans, encouraging longer employment, investing in the longevity economy, developing and designing cities and towns that are age friendly. “Really everything has to change. We have a world that was designed around a younger population.”
To baby boomers: “Enjoy and appreciate your life. Do more to develop new relationships, including relationships across generations. Learning goes both ways. Don’t let the inevitable aches and pains of aging make you believe that your not capable of making a contribution.”
Topics
00:52 The Upside of Aging
02:29 Progress and Challenges in Aging
04:44 The Impact of Attitude and Purpose
08:26 Volunteering and Health Benefits
10:18 Rethinking Retirement and Aging
23:29 Global Perspectives on Aging
28:01 Policy Recommendations and Final Thoughts