With the number of over-65s expected to nearly double by 2050 and little plan for how to support them, Channel 4 News looks at what can be done to cope with the perfect storm of an ageing population and spoke to CPS Research Fellow Michael Johnson.
To read the full article, visit Channel 4 News.
“For Michael Johnson, a research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies who gave evidence to the committee, the difficulty with preparing for old age is that we are delving into the unknown: we don’t know how long we are going to live, and we have no idea if we will be reliant on social care.
But given that recent ONS estimates suggest we are all going to be living six years longer than previously thought, Mr Johnson believes we need to prepare for the worst. This means reframing the older age group in terms of a period of “fit retirement”, which could mean a continuation of some kind of paid work, followed by a period of frail dependency, he told Channel 4 News.
This would render the concept of a fixed pension age irrelevant, and would also get around the divide within the older age group between rich and poor, with the wealthier cohort living much longer than their peers and falling into the “fit retirement” category for longer.”
To read the full article, visit Channel 4 News.
Date Added: Wednesday 9th January 2013
