A narrative on a 100 Year Life continued on Feb.6th at U of T Rotman School of Management with the Canadian premier screening of a new documentary produced by Theo Kocken – Professor, Risk Management in the Netherlands.
The film Your Hundred Year Lifewas followed by a panel discussion, each speaker addressing four separate streams – from health & home care to housing options, and from older adults at work to pensions & financing later life.
With that outline, here are some brief reflections on what I heard. Alongside Theo Kocken, there was Jen Recknagel, Director, Innovation & Design,NORC Innovation Centre, University Health Network, and three speakers, each with a role at Canada’s National Institute on Ageing (NIA). First, there’s Dr. Samir Sinha – NIA’s Director of Health Policy Research, and Director of Geriatrics at Sinai Health & University Health Network in Toronto.
Highly profiled in the media these last few years, Sinha spoke to the overall state of healthcare for older adults. He notably referenced the Ontario Bringing Care Homereport from 2015. Seems like this needs a serious dusting off because it doesn’t appear any great progress has been made for this as a top priority in current healthcare discussions. As Sinha said where’s the money and social support?
Somewhat a segue to home care, Jen Recknagel spoke to housing options for older adults, specifically the concept of NORC’s – Naturally Occurring Retirement Communities. Of all the topics discussed on this Hundred Year Life panel, NORC’s sparked the most talk. Definitions and benefits of a NORC are obviously in need of illumination based on the comments and questions that arose, so for starters here, check out NORC Innovation Centre.
Next Lisa Taylor, an NIA Associate Fellow and CEO of Challenge Factory, author of The Talent Revolution: Longevity & the Future of Work.Knowing Taylor,in her usual succinct way she spoke to the myths and realities of older adults working longer and the age bias that continues to place constraints on the potential contributions of those who choose to work longer later in life.
As I have long maintained, and Lisa Taylor said pointedly here, we need to change frames of reference on the world of work. The language/terminology we still use in employment and retirement policy screws us, setting us up for ageism; for example, in Canada for sure, in data driven policy we use the term “working age”, being people between ages 18-65. As Taylor submitted, all this goes against the grain of a belief in the benefits of life long career development.
Rounding out the conversation, Keith Ambachtsheer, NIA’sSenior Fellow, Retirement Income Security. He provided a current overview of pension plan systems in Canada and possible corrections that might be made to best suit the realities of ageing demographics. Given all else the panel covered in discussion, I must admit I did get lost in the pension dialogue. All I could think of, was to re-read the book The Third Rail: Confronting Our Pension Failures (2013) – first chapter title Canada’s Pension Promise: Worn Out. How are we now ten years on?
Back to the documentary itself. For me it wasn’t, as its website promo sets it up – “amind-blowing representation of the parlous state of old-age provision”. Perhaps if you have never even thought of, or heard of the prospect of a 100 year life, then maybe this film will be an eye opener for you, a new way of reframing what it is to adjust your thinking of a greater longevity.
Though what a set up question in the promo of this film – “How can we avert the global catastrophe awaiting our elderly?” If the intent of this film is to encourage or nudge people into thinking about how to better approach a design of an individual blueprint for their extended life course, then that opening bleak tone may not be the way to start. After all, are we not talking about our future selves – are we that so called elderly, and is our later life going to be a catastrophe?
Let me suggest before you view this documentary, that you read the 2016 book The 100-Year Lifeby Lynda Gratton & Andrew Scott, which is really the foundation for this whole narrative of “Living and Working in an Age of longevity”. One somber soundbite that did catch my ear and rested in my mind throughout this Rotman event, came from Lynda Gratton, who did appear in a few interview clips in the film, we mustthink about theinequities of longevityaround the world.
In the book’s introduction we hear, at least in a sobering tone: “We are in the midst of an extraordinary transition that few of us are prepared for. If we get it right it will be a real gift; to ignore and fail to prepare will be a curse.” Indeed, living life through the curse of a pandemic may have made the notion of a promised age of longevity a questionable one for many; yet here we are, a hundred year life is still on parade.
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