Lessons for making the most of a longer life

Scientific advances could see average lifespans increase significantly. Received wisdom views this as a potential burden on society. Professor Andrew Scott, who formed The Longevity Forum with Jim Mellon, disagrees, arguing that we should view longer healthier lives as a gift. But governments and business are still woefully underprepared to reap the benefits. Here is his advice for the various readers of The Wealth Report. 

Fledgling wealth creators 

Don’t model yourself on your parent’s generation; you’ve got to do things differently. Being an entrepreneur, particularly in your 20s, is great because you’re going to learn a lot, you’re going to learn about yourself and what you’re good at, and you’ve got time in a longer life to make mistakes, to educate yourself and to experiment and find out what you want to do.  

Head of the family  

The good news is, if you’re living longer, your wealth should accumulate for longer. So, you’ve got more of it, but your family is going to get bigger. There are massive challenges when you go from a three- to a four-generation household.  

If you’ve got a family firm, it gets really complicated. Back when life expectancy was 75 or 80, you’d hand over your company to a 40-year-old. But if you’re living to 100, do you hand it over to a 70-year-old? The person in charge is in charge for a lot longer, and that has the potential to create all sorts of tensions.  

What we’re going to have to start thinking about is less of a hierarchical system, and more of an inter-generational system, where every generation is represented. We need to start thinking too about careers in general not as a ladder, but more like a lattice. Is there something I can give the eldest child to run, that isn’t the company itself? It could be a foundation, or a block of property. 

Of course, the other option is simply to admit that it's not possible. If I'm 50 and my child is 25, I may have another 30 or 40 years running this company. So, rather than grooming them to take over the company, could they be looking for ways to expand the business in other dimensions and directions?  

Business owners  

Staff retention is going to be tricky because people are living multi-stage lives. In terms of HR, you’re going to have to have multiple entry and exit points and more flexible career paths.  

With our outdated three-stage mindset – education, work, retirement – everyone focuses on graduate intake. I can’t understand why, because if you look at population trends the larger group is made up of those that are about to leave the workforce, rather than come in. How do I keep them happy and engaged? Because you don’t want that experience to walk off.  

It’s also less about money. I might say: “I know you’ve got a young family and you need more time. You’ve been working for us long enough, you can go down to four days a week because I know, later, you're going to come back to five days.”  

Wealth advisors  

The role of the wealth advisor now isn’t really about wealth, it’s about, “How do you support the life you want?” Which is about wealth, of course, but it’s also about health, and it’s about purpose.  

Of course, there are more options, because we haven't had to deal with this longer life before. So, it’s a more bespoke, more customised approach than saying:  

“You need this amount of money to stop working.” It’s asking: “What type of life do you want to support? And how do you go about instructing your wealth and your work to achieve that?”  

Property markets and developers  

If I buy a house when I’m 30 or 35 and I own it for a long time I’m going to have a lot of wealth tied up in it. That’s going to create problems for other generations; you’re going to start seeing a lot more multi-generational housing developments. 

The other thing is that people are beginning to change their living patterns. Previously, people used to leave the city when they stopped working, and they’d go to the coast or the countryside. You’re seeing many more people in their 70s and 80s wanting to stay in the city, but cities are not designed for older people, so we need new housing stock.