• Shorter Careers, Longer Lives
  
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SHORTER CAREERS, LONGER LIVES
So What Do We Do With Our Last 30 Years?

During Reunions last year, management consultant William R. Stanley '56 moderated a panel titled "Shorter Careers, Longer Lives," a discussion about the nexus between changes in the economy and the lengthening of life spans for men and women. As he stated in his introductory remarks, "In today's world of downsizing, careers are disrupted in ways unimaginable even a decade ago, and it's happening during the last decade of a century in which Americans and others in the developed world have added 30 years to the average life span. In some ways, 80 hardly seems to define old age anymore, for many people beyond that milestone remain energetic and committed to life and work. But society still operates on the old paradigm that, sometime between 55 and 65, you're supposed to retire to Sun City to play shuffleboard. It's okay for you to continue spending money as a consumer, of course, but otherwise you're of no value to society."
Stanley then noted two startling statistics: in 1929, of all American males over 65-today's nominal age for retirement-66 percent earned paychecks. Now, just 16 percent do. "So as we live longer, we have less opportunity to be productive members of society. Many people believe we've been sold a myth about the joys of retirement. It wasn't until after World War II that we really embraced the idea, and it's becoming increasingly clear that the concept is outdated. For most older people today, two of their biggest concerns are outliving their incomes and having meaningful roles in society."
The following remarks are adapted from statements made by three other participants: Dr. Lydia Bronte, a research fellow at the Phelps-Stokes Fund in New York City and director of its Longevity Project; Corinne Black, a Princeton-based editor and writer with a Ph.D. in anthropology; and John W. "Jack" Ballard '50, the cofounder, with his wife, Phoebe, of The Turning Points Research Institute, based in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Stanley will moderate a similar discussion at Reunions this year. Sponsored by the Classes of 1956 and 1966, the panel will convene at 3:15 p.m., Friday, May 31, in Dodds Auditorium (McCCosh 10).

Lydia Bronte:
What we're talking about is no less than one of the most important developments in human life in history. During this century, in the developed nations we have added almost 30 years to average life expectancy. Three countries-Sweden, West Germany, and Japan-are ahead of the United States in this category. Those 30 years are more than was added to average life expectancy from Year One of the Common Era to 1900-almost 2,000 years. And we've done it all in less than one century.
The result is that we've nearly doubled a typical adult lifespan, which in the U.S. is now 79.7 years for women and 72.8 for men, and of course, many live well into their 80s and 90s. At the beginning of this century, average life expectancy in this country was roughly 47 years, and many died in their late 40s and early 50s. So a typical adult life ran roughly from 20 to 50. Now it runs from 20 to 50, then from 50 to 80, and then-for some-from 80 on.
When we first noticed this phenomenon we thought it was terrible, as though the time had been added to old age like some kind of cosmic game of pin the tail on the donkey: first you have a normal human life, then you add 30 years of old age to it. But that's not an accurate description for what has happened. Longevity has increased, but the aging process, for reasons not entirely understood, has slowed down, so that the extra time has really been added to middle age, not to old age.
Physiologically, people aren't getting old as early as they did once. Think about your parents and grandparents and what they were like at particular ages-I knew both my grandmothers when they were 50, and they were old women. I like to think I'm not an old woman, even though I have passed 50. People look 10 or 20 years younger than their grandparents at equivalent ages. This phenomenon is full of hope: in a time-starved society, we all have more time. We just don't get it today. Instead of 12 hours added to our day, we get 20 or more years added to our life spans. It's a pattern incompatible with the idea that 65 marks the onset of old age.
Today, 50 is the beginning a new stage of adult life. We are the first generation to live beyond 50 and beyond 65 as a generalized experience. While conducting my research for The Longevity Factor (HarperCollins, 1993), I was amazed to learn that almost half the people I interviewed-who ranged in age from 65 to 102-had a tremendous creative growth-spurt beginning at age 50, plus or minus a few years.
As for age 65, it has no biological significance. It was selected in 1935, when average life expectancy was about 60; 70 seemed too old, and 60 seemed too young for retirement age, so they split the difference. Sixty-five is not necessarily when people become physiologically old. The process of aging depends so much on the individual. The people in my study include an 85-year-old in New York City who looks about 64, and a 92-year-old stockbroker in Chicago who still takes the bus to work every morning and looks about 70.
Our real lives are out of sync with the ideas that we grew up with concerning aging and old age. We assumed that our lives were going to be pretty much like those of our parents and our parents' friends, and they're not. If you're in your early 60s, you are still on an upcurve of a second middle age, which is possibly your most productive period of life. And you are probably not going to be old, physically or in any other way, for at least another 20 years, maybe longer. We thought we had settled the idea of what we were going to do with the rest of our lives when we graduated from college at 21 or 22, and instead we have to confront the question over and over again. Our society is very biased-it determines a lot of things on the basis of chronological age. All of us are going to have to create new roles for ourselves and fight that age bias.
I learned a lot from the 150 people I studied about maintaining health and vitality through the mature years of life. I have almost stopped using the word "aging" because I don't think it's appropriate anymore-it does not mean what it used to in terms of physical reality. I learned that as you grow older, the most important single thing in maintaining health and vitality is exercise. In my study group, whose average age was 80, 70 percent exercised regularly, and 60 percent exercised every day. A number of studies confirm that if you want to keep yourself in good health, form the habit of exercising-if not every day, then at least every other day. This was not something I was particularly happy to find out. Although exercise is something I've always been for, I've never done much of it. But halfway through the study I went out and joined a health club. I knew when I was beaten.
The second thing is good nutrition-including a lot of fresh food and some sort of multivitamin and mineral supplement. All the scientific studies show that taking a multivitamin beyond age 50 supports the immune system and reduces your chance of getting colds and flu. There is some kind of medical taboo against telling people this, despite all the research showing it's good for you. The body seems to loose its capacity to assimilate nutrients as we grow older, so your diet has to be better at 75 than at 45 to get an equivalent amount of nutrients.
The third thing: stay active. It turns out that mental stimulation is good for the body, too, because anything that takes place in your mind also takes place in your body. The brain is an organ which produces about 300 different hormones, of which scientists have analyzed only about 24. The research that was done at UCLA by Norman Cousins in his last 10 years shows clearly that stimulation and (my fourth point) happiness are both important for keeping you in good health. Personally, I had to struggle with this notion of happiness because I was raised to be a conventional overachiever and to feel that if I was having too good a time I was doing something wrong. It turns out that really being happy-liking what you do-is one of the single most important factors in longevity. Everyone I interviewed for my study liked what they did. And if they stopped liking it, they stopped doing it and found something else to do.
A big part of happiness is keeping up your relationships. A majority of people I interviewed had very long, happy marriages (although it wasn't always the first marriage). A good marriage is very supportive of longevity and good health, and the long-lived people seemed to have a wide range of friends, from their smallest grandchildren to people older than they were-if there were any left.
I leave you with this charge: there is the ordinary solution to the questions that confront us in longevity and age bias, and there's the miracle solution. There are lots of problems to be solved. The ordinary solution is for the heavens to open and the trumpets to blow and God to send all His angels down to give us ideas and to solve all the problems for us. The miracle solution is for us to do it ourselves.

Corinne Black:
Not long ago, I interviewed a very old lady who lived in the poorest county in Maine. She had worked her entire life as a blueberry raker, postmistress, and much more. "How do you feel about being old?" I asked. "Well, to tell the truth," she said, "I've just been too busy to think about it." Some lucky few of us may sail through the third age as she did, busy with our work. However, most of us start to come to terms with being older somewhere in our 50s or 60s and to reflect on how we want to live out our long lives.
Where aging is concerned, we're bombarded by extremes. The New York Times entitles an article "Hope Grows for a Vigorous Old Age," while Thurgood Marshall, when asked why he was stepping down from the Supreme Court, replies, "Because I'm getting old and I'm falling apart." Most of us, of course, lie somewhere in between.
My own interest in aging began in 1989 when my husband died. There was the empty house, the loneliness, the sense that life would never be the same. My husband had left two books in draft form, and helping to complete those books became a welcome challenge. During this period, I read voraciously about widowhood and other miseries associated with getting older. I gradually realized that the whole field of aging was extremely interesting. I began talking with people, taping interviews, reading, clipping articles, and reflecting. One aspect of aging that struck me was that those of us who are getting on are all lumped under the heading of senior citizens, whether we're 60 or 95. The only major distinction seems to be between older people and the very elderly. Yet older people vary greatly in their health, in levels of energy and vigor, financial security, and in many other ways. Nonetheless, most of us are still faced with an unprecedented range of possibilities. No longer tied to stereotypes of the way an older person is supposed to behave, we can grow as never before.
I'd like to set forth three thoughts for reflection. First, as we grow older, we can drop a lot of baggage. Second, we can rethink our values and to some extent reorder them. Third, we can explore different ways to live that enrich our lives.
By "baggage" I mean the wide range of psychic freight we carry around, including preoccupations with job status and power. Sometimes the baggage takes the form of a burdensome sense that we should have done more with our lives, that we should have been something other than what we became, or that we somehow missed the boat and have been tied to a way of life we regret. Emotional baggage can take many forms, and as we grow older, some of the heavier pieces can be dropped. With this psychic freight gone, fresh energy is freed up, and this energy can be brought to more creative uses and can even help us make better decisions.
The second thought-reordering one's values-is part of lightening up the baggage. Freud wrote that the two main focuses in life are work and love. Freud's love speaks in large part to the family, and it is here that older men in particular can benefit. More than one father, older and wiser, has turned to a grown child, fostering a deeper relationship that becomes of powerful importance to them both. For those people moving into the job market in their 50s and beyond, rethinking values can become a crucial element in what they decide to do. They may, after reflection, be willing to forgo a somewhat higher salary in favor of a job that gives them more satisfaction. Professors, for example, earn less than corporate men and women, but in job satisfaction they consistently rank higher. Older women who have loyally remained at the hearth for decades may now feel it is time to put more emphasis on their own growth and development.
The third thought deals with exploring stimulating ways to live during the third age. It brings up the subject of retirement, a period of life that can be deadly, or one that can be so good that you can't wait to get out of bed in the morning. A recent obituary of Maggie Kuhn, head of the Gray Panthers, told how she received a sewing machine when she retired. She said, "I never opened it. I was too busy." She then went on to work for a ban on mandatory retirement, which was later enacted into law. There are many avenues to follow-from being useful to others, to setting up your own business, to trying something creative you've never done, such as painting, poetry, music, or writing your memoirs for your family. One older man I know, highly successful in his work, turned to photography. He wrote that it kept his mind off of his own mortality and helped him stay "very much alive."
Some older people find great pleasure in serving as mentors to younger persons. Their wealth of experience and wisdom can be used in settling conflicts in one's community, or among contentious board members, or even in the larger arena. In his book Around the Cragged Hill, George Kennan '25 proposed a national council of elders to advise on a range of matters affecting our country. My own field work as an anthropologist drove home the importance of older people in community life. I spent several years studying a new community in which there were no older people to counsel and mediate. As a result, endless conflicts ensued, which ultimately ended in fruitless and expensive litigation. In many less-developed societies throughout the world, the elders have great status and are called on to handle such matters. Indeed, the stability of the community depends largely on them.
In closing, I would like briefly to contrast our society with a tribe in central Kenya. In this tribe there are six categories in the life cycle for men and eight for women. Each category has a fixed pattern of appropriate behavior that must be followed. We, on the other hand, enter the third age of life with no such limitations. We have endless opportunities. We can indulge our curiosity about life in any number of ways. We can take on what we feel to be a challenge. Such a challenge not only brings forth a rush of fresh energy-it can enhance our very appetite for life.