Is 60 the New 40?

Author: Terry Rapoch

April 2008

“The trick is growing up without growing old.”     Casey Stengel

This is the second in a series of articles on a new development agenda.  [Editor’s note:  Please see the March issue of Technology First online at www.gdita.org for the past article.] It is a new agenda because it is grounded in the need for transformation, not simply a continued improvement of how economic development has occurred in the past but also because it attempts to take into account a number of moving parts that need to be strategically linked.  As the President of daytaOhio, my decision to write this series of articles is based on the view that daytaOhio must be an active agent and participant in this transformation. daytaOhio’s mission is to innovate human performance through the fusion of visualization and information using human centered design, and these new capabilities will be crucial to successfully create a new prosperity, a successor to the annuity economy that I described in the last article.  For daytaOhio, the outcomes from its work are unique opportunities to extend human productivity and accelerate learning which I believe are essential in delivering solutions for each of the six transformational elements that I outlined in the last article.  The balance of this article deals with the demographic challenge, starting with a description of the situation we are facing, the opportunities to address it and potential strategies for realizing these opportunities.

The title of this article is a paraphrase from the movie "The Devil Wears Prada" but effectively describes two contracting aspects of the demographic challenge. "Boom, Bust and Echo -- How to Profit from the Coming Demographic Shift" was written in 1996 by Canadian David K. Foot in concert with Daniel Stockman.  His thesis is that demography, more than any other factor, determines overall societal behavior and is the foundation for the economic trends, consumer behavior and public policy that we see.  The title is based on the reality of demographics in America and in fact, most developed Western countries in which the largest single population group, the postwar “baby boomers”, is aging and preparing to move into its retirement.  Strikingly, the reverse in countries such as China, India and most of the lesser developed nations, such as Tanzania where over 45% of the population is under 15 years of age.  In the US, the impending retirement of the “baby boomers” sets up an unprecedented challenge in terms of the aggregate loss of knowledge and intellectual capital but also an unparalleled work ethic. The “bust” that Foot speaks of is very real; with some 25 to 30 million fewer workers in this group available to fill the positions that will be vacated over time, regardless of their level of preparedness to do so.  So the question becomes how does the work get done? It seems clear that a solution involving massive immigration is not palatable and so other solutions need to be found, such as accelerating the participation of the “echo”. While close to the “boomers” in overall numbers, it is not clear they are ready for prime time, in terms of either experience or some would argue, attitude.

The quote by Casey Stengel points to an opportunity, one that is coming about as result of the revolution in health care and human sciences that could make 60 the new 40.  Charles Schwab’s book “You’re 50-Now What? Investing for the Second Half of Your Life” echoes this opportunity.  So while “boomers” may be prepared or at least able to carry on, will they in fact want to in any significant numbers? It is important to couple the opportunity created by the advances of health care and human science with others in information and other technologies to create an environment that makes it feasible to extend the workforce participation of the “baby boomer”. If this opportunity were realized, there would be four important outcomes; first, it would mitigate the gap in the number of workers (created by the decisions of the “boomers” not to have children), second, it would provide an opportunity to transfer generational knowledge, third, it would reduce the burden on social support structures, such Social Security, Medicare and on the younger generations to support these, and fourth, it could contribute to a balanced lifestyle that could improve the quality of life for the “boomers” by providing an opportunity for gradual retirement. However, achieving significant, long term participation by “baby boomers” in the workforce will require strategies to redefine how participation works, what conditions must be realized which in part speaks to the type of technologies that must be made available, and lastly what kind of incentives to affect this behavior will be required in terms of policy and social programs. The following paragraph looks at strategies for extending the working career of “baby boomers”.

There are four strategies that I think are very useful in extending the workforce participation by the “boomers”. The first is to develop technology to provide leverage related to the performance of tasks.  Clearly as people age, they are less able to perform demanding physical activities, so this strategy would address the development of technologies to provide surrogates to reduce these physical constraints, while taking advantage of the experience and skills that the individual has.

The strategy would include the retraining needed to manage such surrogate technologies.  For example, at daytaOhio we have met with representatives from the nursing community on a number of occasions and it is clear that there are serious challenges in terms of maintaining adequate numbers in this workforce.  A significant part of the challenge arises from the physical demands of the job, yet it may be possible using robotic or other types of monitoring to reduce the physical strain and we have seen some prototypes of these.  

The second strategy is to deploy “information prosthetics” or customized environments to enhance the productivity of older workers and leveraging their insight, diligence and understanding.

The third is to develop a new generation of devices that better support distributed activity, effectively monitoring behavior and performance rather than doing so on a centralized basis. For example, many call centers have people working from their homes by providing them with a suitable environment to work effectively.  Can this model be further extended within other occupations to continue to take advantage of an older workforce?  

The fourth is to enact policy and enabling legislation particularly in the area of entitlements to encourage participation in the work force, both for the aging workforce. There has always been talk about the need to increase the number of knowledge workers in this economy and policy needs to make this real, enabling participation of those who truly have the knowledge.

Demographics are not something that can be changed because they are the result of cumulative decisions across generations.  Therefore, the only effective option is to understand how to best adapt to the hand that has been dealt in creative and imaginative ways. It is my view that the focus of daytaOhio on innovating human performance very directly addresses these challenges and is why we see our responsibility as part of this transformational process.  As mentioned, one of the key areas will be to provide effective learning environments so that individuals can adapt the abilities that they have to new working environments and that will be the focus of the next article. As always your comments are welcome and you can get in touch with me at terry.rapoch @wright.edu.