Posted on 02/18/2006 7:25:29 AM PST by Paleo Conservative
The age of retirement should be raised to 85 by 2050 because of trends in life expectancy, a US biologist has said.
Shripad Tuljapurkar of Stanford University says anti-ageing advances could raise life expectancy by a year each year over the next two decades.
A longer life could mean a longer
working life
That will put a strain on economies around the world if current retirement ages are maintained, he warned.
He also told a science meeting in St Louis that 50-year or 75-year mortgages may not be unusual in the future.
Dr Tuljapurkar was speaking at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in the Missouri city.
"People are going to do things they didn't get round to in their working lives. Current institutions are really not equipped at the moment to deal with such long lives," Dr Tuljapurkar said.
"We are going to have to plan a lot more carefully, which people are not very good at."
Lifestyle trends
The Stanford researcher has been looking at relationships between historical trends in ageing, population growth and economic activity.
Based on this, he came up with a scenario in which anti-ageing technologies will increase the most common age of death by one year per year between 2010 and 2030.
Dr Tuljapurkar then applied this scenario to four countries: the US, China, Sweden and India.
In the US the cost of social security and medical care would almost double if people retired at 65
He found that his projected trends in life expectancy would have profound effects on the economy, lifestyle and population demographics.
"It might be possible to go through two mortgages, for example, or even have 50-year or 75-year mortgages," Dr Tuljapurkar explained.
In the US, the cost of social security and medical care would almost double if people retired at 65 under Tuljapurkar's scenario.
But an increase in the retirement age to 85 would bring costs down to today's levels.
However these trends would also create a "permanent underclass" of countries where opportunities for increased life expectancy were not the same as in the industrialised world.
"We can't even get retrovirals to some countries now," he told journalists.
Exactly right. I don't understand the doom and gloom here. We're supposed to be on the side of personal responsibility, and we don't need government permission to retire.
No one has to "toil" for 10 minutes! Because anyone younger than 50 who thinks they will ever see a dime of SSI is out of their minds. SSI is NOT part of my retirement planning. If it there when I retire at an age of MY choosing, great. I'll use it for toys or somthing fun.
If you are under 50 and are stupid enough to include SSI in your retirement planning, you DESERVE to "toil" until you are 85.
I don't know about you, but I know it will be reported that minorities and women will be hurt the most.
This could become a problem if we get past the end of March.
Once again, society suffers because of the persecution of smokers. When everyone smoked, people stayed skinny, worked hard, and died at a reasonable age.
Ooh - that doesn't look promising. But every cloud has a silver lining - my advice? Invest in umbrellas.
You are right. We should exchange Norplant for welfare. As long as someone is on the public dole they aren't allowed to increase their dependency (and our tax buden).
BINGO!!
You must live in BFE where there are no codes and no zoning if you think that's even remotely viable.
Hopefully, we'll still have Ray Nagin on hand. His leadership will be invaluable when that asteroid hits planet earth. A time for healing, a time to rebuild into a chocolate planet.
I imagine that's an extremely common sentiment amongst those who were able to retire at 46. Paris Hilton's crowd would likewise be happy to see all those eyesore Hondas and Fords off the roads, and all that (ugh) single family housing located to Apalachia where they wouldn't have to look at it.
"Hey! You kids get off my boss's lawn!"
Without a doubt. The resentment towards the entitlement class that could work, but won't work is growing. Unfortunately it's not growing fast enough for me.
That's fine and dandy, but look at amortization tables. The first few years of a 30 year mortgage you're only paying 20-40 dollars a month towards principal. With a 15 year mortgage it's several hundred dollars. I plan on doing the same thing and hope to be paid off in 10 years, not 25.
I'm with you. If my husband and I ever see social security, it will be our "travel" money. I'm not counting on it, and when the time comes I won't be dependent on it.
Making the statement that "some" younger freepers espouse euthanasia is not the same as making a statement about all young people or what my opinion is about all young people. And yet you accuse me of being intellectually dishonest.
I am far from rich and have been told by financial planners that I was stupid to quit working at that age. I was able to retire because I had no debt and I am willing to live cheap. That doesn't cut it for most people.
Life is short. Twenty-nine years of working was enough for me.
And I paid off the 30-year mortgage in 8 years, by putting in extra principal payments whenever I could, while not being obligated to pay more than my standard payment in lean times
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.