FRESH TAKES ON BIG IDEAS

At the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI), we’re focused on a modern perspective of health that extends beyond the physical to include mental, social, and spiritual health. What enhances health, however, changes as we age.  

We define healthy aging as having continual “functional capacity”—or the ability to live daily life without undue pain or fatigue. Over time, an individual’s environment becomes increasingly important to being able to function, especially as physical, mental, social, or spiritual capacity declines. For example, an older person with a chronic illness living in a supportive environment may have more functional capacity than someone who is physically well but isolated. 

In a recent MHI survey of more than 21,000 adults over 55 in 21 countries, we learned that older adults think five factors matter most to their health and functional capacity. The first four are having purpose, managing stress, being physically active, and interacting with others. The fifth is participating in activities beyond the home that incorporate purpose, stress reduction, movement, and socialization (such as volunteering, employment, learning, or being involved in community programs). People who do these things rate their health higher than their peers who don’t. 

In general, older adults are active in their societies, though participation levels vary greatly depending on the context. However, a substantial number of older adults want to be doing more.  

When it comes to employment, between 19 and 25 percent of respondents aged 55 and older said they are not working even though they want to work. I’m expressing those percentages as a range because there was some variation among respondents in different types of economies: desire to work was slightly lower in the highest-income societies, but higher in both lower-income and middle-income economies. Lower-income economies also had the highest percentage (38 percent) of respondents who said they are working because they want to, citing personal fulfillment, financial reasons, and health reasons as top factors. Among older adults, 84 percent, 63 percent, and 53 percent of older adults’ primary motivation for working is nonfinancial in India, China, and Brazil, respectively. 

“Between 19 and 25 percent of respondents aged 55 and older said they are not working even though they want to work.”

We’ve just completed some preliminary work on sizing the potential for increased workforce participation in the United States. We estimate that older adults who are not volunteering but want to do so could contribute an additional 88 hours on average per person annually for a total of 8.7 billion volunteer hours per year. Getting older adults who want to work but are not working to reenter the workforce could add up to $1.7 trillion in incremental annual GDP (or up to 7.2 percent). We are running similar analyses in many of the countries we sampled in our survey and will publish findings soon. 

Some communities are starting to find new ways to address aging through social, physical, and political infrastructure. For example, in Hanoi, the NGO HelpAge International in Vietnam established more than 90 Intergenerational Self-Help Clubs in which local older people gather and make decisions about how they want to contribute to their local communities. Club members have collectively raised money to maintain their own club operations, provided microcredit loans to more than 300 members, and helped local community members obtain home care services. The most cited benefit from club members is the significant increase in community unity and solidarity. Similar examples of social support groups also exist in high-income countries. Examples like these highlight the importance of maintaining social connections and engaging older adults and their communities.

Far too often, opportunities that come from having an aging population are overlooked because of the many challenges relating to the largest demographic shift in human history. This is what we really need to rethink: instead of focusing on people’s numerical age, we need to zero in on how to expand their functional capacity.

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR

Ellen Feehan is a partner in McKinsey’s New Jersey office.

MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR

UP NEXT

Aditya Sanghvi on the pandemic’s effect on real estate

A recent McKinsey report examined the pandemic’s impact on urban real estate and modeled scenarios for demand through 2030. The bottom line: fewer days in the office has sent shock waves throughout the industry.

Share these insights

Did you enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to colleagues and friends so they can subscribe too. Was this issue forwarded to you? Sign up for it and sample our 40+ other free email subscriptions here.