The political debate is hotting up as we head into the June election and so to are some astounding assumptions behind the claims. Some examples: Care costs preventing people from leaving their home to their children. UK life expectancy is now around 80; the average age of UK first time Mums is 28 and they […]
When I talk to people about living longer I can see their thought processes develop as the real implications begin to dawn. Initially the subject is dismissed as ‘something they already know’. There are constant media reports covering many of the common implications – growing demands on the health service, an increase in state pension age […]
This week the UK media cannot decide if the problems of the NHS are caused by our aging population or by the obesity epidemic hitting our young. We at EML have the answer – it’s both! These are simply two aspects of a challenge faced by us all – rapidly increasing life expectancy. In the […]
Underlying much of EML’s work is the astonishing fact that global human life expectancy has increased by 50% in just 50 years. Today we share the world with five generations – each with a different perspective on the meaning of later life. Today’s octogenarians are the Surprised generation. Growing up between the wars they didn’t […]
In global terms the current European chaos is little more than a side-show. Whether Britain leaves or remains pales into insignificance when look at the ‘big cogs’ of world evolution. Life expectancy worldwide has increased by 50% in the last 50 years according to the UN and, as a result, the global population has increased […]
Questions must be asked… In creating EML I set out to understand the full impact and implications of living longer. I quickly learned that while much work was being done looking at various narrow aspects of the trend – financial, medical, social etc – there was little research into the overall impact on individuals – […]
Has it really come to an end….? You have to go back in history a long way to find a time when the average life expectancy of one generation was less than the preceding one – maybe during the Black Death or possibly the Potato Famine. Whenever it was it is almost certain that there […]
Understanding the impact of living longer takes a researcher in many directions – including the mass movement of people. I am not, for a moment, suggesting that the current wave of migration to Western Europe is caused by an increase in life expectancy – but it is most certainly is a contributory factor. There are […]
Previously I’ve written about the Darwinian challenge we all face. In less than 50 years average human life expectancy has risen by over 50%. While not unheard of, change of this magnitude is exceptional in Darwinian terms and poses real challenges to all of us as we struggle to adapt to the world of living longer. […]
Mention Charles Darwin and more than likely you think about his book – The Origin of Species – it can be summarised in just five words – ‘the survival of the fittest’. Most people think of Darwinian evolution as being a slow process that happens over millions of years so you may be surprised to […]