A recent study that appeared in the medical journal The Lancet on Friday has revealed that babies born today, that is, the contemporary times, in the developed or rich countries will live up to a 100 years, going by the current patterns of life expectancy.
The paper written by Kaare Christensen, professor at the Danish Ageing Research Centre at the University of Southern Denmark, mentions that the 20th century has witnessed an incredible increase of about 30 years in the overall life expectancy of people.
The increase in life expectancy
"If the pace of increase in life expectancy in developed countries over the past two centuries continues through the 21st century, most babies born since 2000 in France, Germany, Italy, the UK, the USA, Canada, Japan and other countries with long life expectancies will celebrate their 100th birthdays," the review said.
The proportion of 80-year-old women in the 1950s who reached their 90s was only about 15-16 percent, and the number of men in advanced economies who reached their 90s was around 12 percent.
On the other hand, 2002 saw a steep rise in life expectancy. The numbers had risen to 37 percent and 25 percent respectively. Japan has witnessed phenomenal survival rate in women, that of more than 50 percent from their 80s to their 90s.
The study also provided evidence that the extra years adding up are not as difficult and miserable due to disease, disability, and dependence as they were in the past.
The challenges faced
The paper has also mentioned that the increasing life span could lead to significant socio-economic challenges in the future, as the elderly will start constituting a more significant part of the society.
The author has advised that to counter these adverse outcomes, spread of employment more evenly amongst the several age groups will be needed. Currently, it's mainly concentrated around the younger ones.
Christensen has proposed a solution that instead of people working relentlessly in their prime, "individuals could combine work, education, leisure and child-rearing in varying amounts at different ages."
"The 20th century was a century of redistribution of income. The 21st century could be a century of redistribution of work," they argued.
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