The population is the driving force for change. Many countries are facing an epidemic – more people leaving the workforce than people entering. If a country continues down this path.The consequences will be severe. With very few people in the workforce and so many depend on those in the workforce, more money has to be devoted to the pension. With more money going to pension, less will be put into the other areas such as education, transportation, and even healthcare. Taxation could also be increased, taking money from the people in the workforce and increasing the price of goods. When this happens, working people will not be able to afford luxury or even necessities. The economy will fail, the homeless people will arise. Many countries will face a demographic crisis.

Japan is spending a quarter of its budget on pension and social security for the elderly. The current system of Japan or Japanese social security system, the benefits are going to elder generation whereas the burden is borne by the working or young generation and it is found unsustainable.

How do we manage our elders? Are we prepared to bear the costs of the elderly? They deserved to be treated with respect. They are our parents. They are the ones that chart our future tomorrow.

About the Author

Dr. Mazlan Abbas is an IOT Evangelist and a Thought Leader. He received an award as 50 Most Impactful Smart Cities Leaders by World CSR 2017. He is ranked No. 20th Thought Leader in IOT by 2014 Onalytics Report – “The Internet of Things – Top 100 Thought Leaders”, ranked Top 10 in IoT Top 100 Influencers by Postscapes 2016/2017, ranked Top 100 in Smart Cities Top Experts by Agilience Authority Index May 2016. You can reach him on LinkedIn or Twitter. Check all his presentation slides HERE.

Don’t let them alone.

Never in human history have so many live so long. Data suggests that if we reach 65 years of age, it’s likely we live to 85. We are living longer and we are having fewer babies.
The aging society is the fact that you have a large proportion of people over the age of 60 than under the age of 15. And it’s not just America that is an aging society, Europe, China, Japan we are an aging globe.

An aging society isn’t just about old people, it’s not just about baby boomers, gen-x will likely live longer and so will millennials. The baby boomers are an introduction to what would be a permanent shift, and the shift will utterly transform our society. How and how long we work, how we will live, how we organize our family, medical care and political lives.

We think 65 as the retirement age engrave in stone. But when social security was enacted in 1935, average life expectancy was only 62, 3 years less than retirement age. Today we can expect 15 years beyond traditional age.

Few of us imagine retirement as a vacation anymore. Most of us haven’t saved enough, and we are all worried about social security and medicare.

Children in American society historically have only suffered losses that relate to their parents in the most part but today and tomorrow, they gonna loss of their parents, grand parents and great grandparents.

The world we live in, the people we become demographically speaking are way different from 1935 or 1950 or even 1970 but our institutions, economies, policies, social security, medicare, community, work all were design for who we were 50 years ago. They don’t work for us today.

How will we come of an age in an aging world?

Check out upcoming articles how IoT can play a part in making healthcare affordable to all. But it’s also good to hear your thoughts regarding this.