What does work look like for you in The Age of Longevity?
“If we operate with a belief in long sweeps of time, we build cathedrals. If we operate from fiscal quarter to quarter, we build ugly shopping malls.”
For those of us born in the West today, living to 100 will be the norm not the exception — how does this affect our relationship to work?
In their 2016 book The 100-Year Life psychologist Lynda Gratton and economist Andrew Scott paint a picture of the changing landscape of work as we live longer.
Many of us have been raised on the traditional idea of a three-stage approach to our work lives which goes like this…
Education > Work > Retirement
However this well-known pathway is already beginning to collapse — life expectancy is rising, pensions are vanishing and increasing numbers of people are juggling multiple careers.
Whether you are 18, 45 or 60, you will need to do things very differently from previous generations and learn to structure your life in completely new ways.
Gratton and Scott’s work — including their follow-up The New Long Life — is a wake-up call to prepare us for what to expect, considering the choices and options that each of us will face in the coming decades. Not to mention the growing uncertainty that pandemics and climate change will have on the way we live.
At the heart of their work is the concept of human ingenuity, where rather than being passengers, we’re called to become social pioneers in order to make the most of new technologies and longer, healthier lives.
However this means navigating a new life story — where we explore by learning and transitioning, and connect more deeply to others, but also to ourselves.
This means thinking more like a designer. Where you are more intentional about your work and life — treating it like a design project — rather than reactive to whatever comes your way.
A fundamental redesign of life
Whilst this process will be gradual — it has already been going on at the edges for many years (just ask any entrepreneur or freelancer) — it will culminate in a social and economic revolution.
Just as technology and globalisation have transformed the way we live, so the changes needed to make the most of a 100-year life will do the same.
Here’s how:
👴🏾 People will work into their 70s… or even 80s — If you live to 100, save 10% of your income and want to retire on 50% of your final salary you’ll need to work into your 80s.
📚 There will be new opportunities and skills — all of which will require re-learning and re-skilling.
💰 Money will be important, but not the most important resource — family, friendships, mental health and happiness will become even more crucial as we live longer.
👩🏼💻 Life will become multi-staged — having 2 or 3 careers will be standard over a lifetime. Often this will look like one where you maximise your finances and work long hours; another where you balance work with family, or want to position your life around jobs that make a strong social contribution.
𝌡 Transitions will become the norm — when life morphs from three stages to multiple stages, there will be more transitions. This means being flexible, acquiring new knowledge, exploring new ways of thinking, letting go of old ties and building new networks.
🧪 New stages will emerge — these new stages create an opportunity to experiment, to build the life you want. Just like teenagers and retirees are relatively new stages of life constructed in the last century.
🌱 Re-creation will be more important than recreation — and the need to invest in shifting identities as you take on new roles. There’ll be less focus on consumption and leisure, and more on investment — in skills, health and relationships — and re-invention.
