Managing an aging populace
Populations worldwide are growing older, fast. To manage that trend, people need to rethink their assumptions about education, work, and retirement. That’s the bad news. The good news is that people are healthier and living longer. And by reshaping their course, they could see education last a lifetime and employment last longer and allow for more leisure. The alternative to that scenario, according to Jack Rowe, a Columbia University professor of health policy and management, is a society that has wider gaps in opportunity, education, and health between “haves” and “have-nots” and that, more broadly, fails to rise to the challenges it faces. Rowe spoke at the 50th anniversary symposium of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies. The event, “Reimagining Societies in the Face of Demographic Change,” took place Tuesday on Harvard’s Longwood campus and featured speakers who touched on issues related to global population change, including fertility decline, the roles...