Two cheers for Sheryl Sandberg’s column “The secret to a strong economy is women” (Opinion, March 7). The third cheer is reserved for older adults, who today comprise from roughly a fifth to over 40 per cent of OECD populations, from America to Japan and across Europe.
What Sandberg, a former chief operating officer of Meta, says of women is even more true for older adults, including women. Economic growth is not sustainable in our ageing societies if we leave such large percentages of men and women adults (by which I mean 65-plus) on the sidelines, stuck in 20th-century policies and practices.
Our 21st-century ageing societies must reimagine work and retirement to be more inclusive of all older adults — men and women. We must invest in prevention strategies like adult vaccines for healthier ageing for all, and restructure education for skills and training across our entire life horizons.
Sandberg is right that super-ageing Japan is the example, but it was not just what they missed for women; not changing policies and norms for an older adult workforce as it came to represent one-third or more of their entire population is what sent the Japanese economy into its tailspin from the 1990s onwards.
The rest of us, including America, can learn from that big miss — by framing an economic growth strategy through the lens of an ageing society where, largely as a consequence of low birth rates, there are more old than young.
Michael W Hodin
CEO, Global Coalition on Aging,
New York, NY, US
