geoff mulgan - the paradoxes of ageing

Slide 1

The Paradoxes of Ageing – and how to overcome them

Geoff Mulgan

Business of Ageing, Toronto 30 April 2012

Slide 2

Active ageing: a policy challenge or an innovation

challenge?

Is a salutogenic world possible?

Could we turn the participation trends around?

Michael Young (1915-2002) ‘probably the world’s most successful entrepreneur of social enterprises’

Pioneer of new thinking about age; creator of OU, U3A, Grandparents plus and many others...

With Peter Laslett, developed the idea of third and fourth ages – adding years not to the end of the life but the middle

The end of chronologism

The good news?

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Slide 8

• Employment between the ages of 55 and 69 has increased in recent years (2002/3 to 2008/9); amongst men (65-69 yrs) from 15.7% to 23.7% and amongst women (60-64 yrs) from 29.5% to 35.0%

• Over 800,000 65+ now employed, 3.0% of all workers; doubled in ten years

• Of 3,000 high growth start-ups - 25 or more employees – over a third founded by over-50s

• A big motivator for over-50s to set up a new business: the opportunity to work beyond official retirement age – 30%

• Over-65s the fastest growing age group for self-employment - last year number setting up in business increased by 48 per cent, from 224,000 to 332,000

– B&Q retail chain long-standing policy of recruiting older workers

– Sainsbury’s offer a 25 year window for retirement between ages 50 and 75. Within this window employees can reduce their working hours and claim part of their pension while continuing to accrue further pension entitlements

– Ernst and Young - ‘boomerangs’ – allows former employees and retirees to return to the organisation

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Slide 11 The Young Foundation 2010

John Browne: a salutary warning

Little or no narrowing of the morbidity gap

Life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and EU–healthy life expectancy at birth, Great Britain 1981–2006

Source: ONS

The paradox

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Slide 14

The things older people say they want are made hard by our systems and structures:

•to be useful and recognised •to be helped at home when frail by a circle of support•to end life at home surrounded by loved ones

Innovation

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Health spend as % GDP versus adult mortality rate

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15

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40 60 80 100 120

Hea

lth

sp

end

as

% G

DP

Adult mortality rate

Source: OECD Health Data 2010

0.0%

0.5%

1.0%

1.5%

2.0%

2.5%

3.0%

0.0% 0.5% 1.0% 1.5% 2.0% 2.5% 3.0% 3.5%

% g

row

th i

n s

har

e o

f G

DP

(p

.a.)

% improvement in mortality rate (p.a.)

Change in health spend share of GDP versus % improvement in adult mortality rate

• US Congressional Budget Office: health spending to rise from 16% of GDP in 2007 to 25% in 2025, 37% in 2050 and 49% in 2082.

• European Union ageing predicted to drive public spending up by 4 percentage points between 2004 and 2050.

• Purchasing power of 60+ generation in Germany nearly one third of total private consumption and will grow to over 40% by 2050

More deliberate innovation and experiment – not just in technologies

and clinical solutions

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Slide 20

prosthetics

Co-housing

Employment agencies

Brain gyms

implants

Home hospices

Timebanks Volunteer transport (ITN)

Care villages

Elder universities (U3A)

Specialised parks

Career switches (ALI)

Open innovation

Social innovation

Innovation in services

User innovation

Changing tools for innovation suitable for ageing

NESTA INVESTMENTS

SVI FUND BIG SOCIETY FINANCE FUND

RESEARCH & POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS

VENTURE INVESTING IMPACT INVESTMENT FUND

CATALYSING START UP SUPPORT

SUPPORTING A DEVELOPING MARKET

AGEING WELL

LEARNING & EMPLOYABILITY

NEEDS OF YOUNG PEOPLE

RESOURCE EFFICIENCY FOR INDIVIDUALS & COMMUNITIES

www.theamazings.org

Building capacity to develop and spread radical social innovations in local government – care/acute interface a priority

Innovation networks to speed mutual learning

Age Unlimited: supporting older social entrepreneurs in Scotland

From projects to systems …

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To get from here... ...to here...

...many things need to change in tandem

Transforming the system?

New technologies, products and services

New policies and regulations

Recalibrated markets

Behavioural change

Transforming the system? Whole System Demonstrators as promising but partial example …

New technologies, products and services

New policies and regulations

Recalibrated markets

Behavioural change

Transforming a system?

New technologies, products and services

New policies and regulations

Recalibrated markets

Behavioural change

Age Unlimited Scotland

People Powered Health

Social Impact Bonds

Happiness

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Wellbeing Mental attitudes to ageing have a significant impact on health.

Median Survival (years)

Those with :-positive attitude to ageing 22.5negative attitude to ageing 15.0

Gain 7.5

Impressive when compared to improvements in:-- Blood Pressure, Cholesterol:

Gain 4 years- Obesity, Smoking, Exercise: Gain 1-3 years

‘Longevity Increased by Positive Self-Perceptions of Ageing’, Becca R. Levy et al, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2002, Vol. 83, No. 2, 261-270

Resilience and well-being -2 -1 0 1 2

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Divorce Widowed Remained married

Cohen et al, 2003

High sociability associated with less cold symptoms

Peckham and the salutogenic workplace?

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What kind of economy allows us to thrive all our lives? What economy makes people a

renewable asset not a disposable one?

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