Are You Ready for the “Longevity Economy”? – Stanford GSB
None of us are getting any younger. That could be a huge opportunity. Those who stay ahead of the curve on serving older customers could become “massive winners.”
This author has yet to write their bio.Meanwhile lets just say that we are proud admin contributed a whooping 2903 entries.
None of us are getting any younger. That could be a huge opportunity. Those who stay ahead of the curve on serving older customers could become “massive winners.”
Studying people who live well beyond the age of 100 could reveal the secret to living longer, healthier lives. But the statistics tell another story.
From the subject of ‘Tuesdays with Morrie,’ the discovery of a manuscript on aging creatively leads to a new book ‘The Wisdom of Morrie.’
Listen to the essay, as read by Antero Garcia, associate professor in the Graduate School of Education, and SCL faculty affiliate.
“Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.“
– Future Shock, 1970, by Alvin Toffler
These words, written by the late author and futurist Toffler, were eerily prescient—and they point to a type of intelligence in high demand today: LQ or “learning quotient.”
Lengthening careers contribute to our need for LQ. As Laura Carstensen, the founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, has put it, “In this era of very, very long life, learning is going to have to be continuous.” As it turns out, we have to not only learn new skills, but also unlearn old ways of doing things.
A 2021 study by Stanford Center on Longevity found that, despite there being about equal numbers of people of every chronological age from 0 to 70 and older, “cross-age relationships are extremely rare.”
“This is an immense lost opportunity because intergenerational relationships can be a transformational tool for productivity, meaning, and justice,” the Stanford Center on Longevity said.
“‘Purpose’ is conflated with lots of other words,” says William Damon, a professor of education at Stanford University and SCL faculty affiliate, “like ‘meaning’ and ‘passion.’” Purpose, however, is something different — it’s broader than a goal, but it’s the guiding motivation that gives your life a sense of direction.
Recent research from the Stanford Center on Longevity (SCL) predicts that many of today’s children can expect to live to the age of 100, an increase in life expectancy that will become the norm by 2050. For many, longer lives will mean more years spent working—a total of 60 years, to be exact.
And that’s going to require a new mind-set––and a lot more planning.
At a recent forum, Stanford education scholars explored conflicts over how and what students are taught in public schools. Mitchell Stevens, sociology professor at GSE, and co-director of the Stanford Center on Longevity, was the lead organizer of the forum.