Sarah Harper on Longevity
The next IQ2 If Conference speaker to be interviewed by Urban Times was Sarah Harper; Professor of Gerontology at Oxford University, Director of the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and the author and editor of several books including Ageing Societies: Myths, Challenges and Opportunities and the International Handbook of of Ageing and Public Policy. Urban Times’ author, Ryan Kapsar, asked Sarah about the impact that an ageing population will have on a global, societal and individual level.
Source: nandadevieast on flickr.com
What piqued your interest in longevity and inter-generational relations?
Longevity is one of the intriguing issues of the 21st Century. Will we really achieve normal life spans for most of the global population of over a century? 120? 150? The science is clearly driving us this way, but we have barely started to consider the consequences. But then how likely is it that this possibility will be available for all? A huge policy question.
You discuss the possibilities of people living to be 200 years in the relatively near future, do think that people will age in the same manner as now or will we age slower?
As we have seen longer and longer lives become a possibility many people have started to delay the transitions of life: we set up adult unions through marriage or cohabitation later, have children later, settle on a career later, and even leave our dependency on our parents later. In this sense we are delaying social ageing. And in the arena of physical and psychological ageing, we seem to be maintaining healthy active lives for longer, and undertaking lifestyles associated with younger ages for longer. So in that sense you could say we are ageing slower.
Do you think that this increase in longevity will be equally distributed or that wealthy countries/individuals will have an advantage in the longevity?
That is the key question – it all depends on whether we will increase or decrease other inequalities across the globe.
Intergenerational problems have been described as both a tragedy of the commons and the prisoner’s dilemma, do you think these are apt descriptions in regard to population levels?
I think that inter-generational problems have been vastly exaggerated in the media. I recently read an article by a British women in her mid 20s who described herself and her cohort as the “unluckiest cohort” ever to have been born…. has she looked at her mother’s life? Her grandmother’s life? Her great-grandmother’s life? Most bright and able women in my mother’s generation did not get the opportunity to even consider University, my grandmother and great grandmother did not have the vote for much of their lives. Women did not own housing, had their children taken away from them if they became pregnant outside marriage, and were constantly pregnant inside marriage. They worked in appalling conditions, in poverty, ill-health and neglect; often combining this with child bearing and child rearing at the same time.
Men and women died early from infectious disease and malnutrition, women died in child birth. Many died in the Wars of the 20th C or lost brothers, husbands and lovers. All this within the last 100 years – just 2 or 3 generations away from our poor writer – who is university educated, vaccinated and protected against most modern diseases, has traveled, can choose when and if to have children, has access to a variety of occupations and can decide when and where to work, has access to modern media, communications and transport, and will probably live a most interesting, secure, long life. My daughters have far more opportunities than I had, and I have had far more than my mother. Every generation is affected by the time it is born into and grows up in – today’s is no different from those before.
Source: 85mm.ch on flickr.com
As there is more and more automation, many types of employment will disappear. How do you think a workforce that will be eligible to work for nearly 100 years longer than now will handle this?
Due to current low levels of fertility rates in most regions of the world, many think there will, if anything, be a skills shortage in the future. The educated and skilled worker, of all ages, who is able and willing to travel will be in demand across the globe.
This huge increase of population will put large pressures on food and water production. Africa is currently experiencing unrest due to raising food prices and access to water. What sort of technology do you think we’ll need in the future to deal with these issues?
It is not just technology which will be important in determining future provision of food and fresh water, but also the institutional structures we are able to put in place which ensure that equitable demand for and access to food is addressed. It is likely that a key issue to be tackled is to reduce the over calorific consumption of the North, which is leading obesity and other health issues, and the under calorific consumption of the South, which causes malnutrition and disease. It is likely that we can feed the whole world, but not necessarily at the calorific levels of the US.
Source: United Nations Photo on flickr.com
Do you think that in general the human condition will be improved or will decline with increased longevity?
If it is equal access to long healthy active lives than it will be improved.
As you are also an expert in development what sort of impact will increased longevity have on the developing world?
We are already seeing the challenges made upon parts of Asia and Latin America which we have been experiencing here in Europe – only we have over 100 years to prepare for the ageing of our populations, they have only 25 years or so to provide appropriate long term care and social security.
If we have solved the issues of food, labour and energy, what are some of the biggest benefits you could see from a large diversely aged population?
The opportunity for multi generations to be alive at the same time and pass up and down through the generations – 4, 5, 6 of them – their own experiences and wisdom.
What are some of the best ways to address the problems you’ve highlighted above to achieve this best-case scenario?
Keep healthy – education for the life course and public health initiatives will be essential .
Are there any other thoughts you’d like to share with the Urban Times readers related to your research?
Population change is a huge, and somewhat underestimated, force for the 21st Century – it has the potential to change every aspect of society. Do your own personal life expectancy – consider what this really means, how you need to change your life to accommodate such a potentially long life – stop smoking, eat healthily and take up running! – you need to keep healthy to take advantage of the wonderful generational opportunity you’ve been given by being born at the RIGHT time!
View Sarah’s talk from the If Conference on Extreme Longevity below:
For more interviews of If Conference speakers: Hugh Broughton, Lewis Dartnell, Michael Birnhack, Mark Post, Tom Chatfield.
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