International aging

In your fantasy life, where’s your “forever” place? That place you see yourself relaxing in retirement, perhaps taking up some new outdoor activities or engaging in new cultural adventures. Or perhaps your fantasy is more exotic: maybe you’re thinking about leaving your home state or even your home country and…

If there’s one thing that’s come through loud and clear during the pandemic, it’s that older adults have, at best, an ambiguous place in our society. Most impulses during COVID have been to either protect or abandon older adults, neither of which is respectful toward older individuals, who are as…

How long can humans live? It’s a question that’s engaged scientific minds for centuries, especially as earlier public health advances and now medical and technological breakthroughs continue to push the boundaries of the human lifespan. A recent piece in The Conversation noted that since the 1950s, there’s been a significant…

Voltaire once said, “The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.” And while we all know there are things to make us feel down as we get older, the reality is that “looking on the bright side” has its benefits – for health and longevity….

From one perspective, the world appears to be entering dangerous, unchartered territory. The populations of most countries around the world are shrinking while at the same time they are aging. Fewer younger workers are available to support a larger number of retired older people. Fertility rates are at the lowest…

Around the world, burgeoning older populations are testing the limits of formal and informal caregiving systems in place. In the US, for example, few realize the connection between our national debate over immigration and our potentially shrinking pool of paid caregivers for our growing senior population. In Japan, given the…