Productive Aging: Boon or Burden?

KATHLEEN COURRIER: Good afternoon and welcome to the fifth seminar in this season's First Tuesdays series. I'm Kathy Courrier. I am vice president for communication here and I am standing in for Bob Reischauer. Bob usually likes to jump-start these events but he couldn't be here today.

The first thing I want to do on behalf of both of us is to apologize for the bug in our e-mail. I think some of you in the room probably received seven or eight reminders of today's event, and if that is so have another cookie on us. We are sorry.

Today's theme is perennial in the sense that the march of generations is inexorable, but it is also topical, since the first baby boomers started turning 60 just 38 days and 12 hours ago. This generation is the healthiest yet, and its jobs have been less physically demanding, and it will live longer. Already, more than 65 million people are 55, my age, or older. And in 25 years one out of every three Americans will be eligible for those over-55 discounts.

Today our panel will address some very big questions. One is how influential will the boomer generation be, and the other is how to keep older Americans engaged and productive but also satisfied in their retirement.

First in the lineup is Scott Bass. Scott is dean of the graduate school and vice provost for research at the University of Maryland at Baltimore County. Before that he was director of the University of Massachusetts Gerontology Institute. And he is also author of some juicy-looking books: Older and Active and Challenges of the Third Age: Meaning and Purpose in Later Life.

Scott will be followed by Sheila Zedlewski, who heads up Urban Institute Center on Income and Benefits Policy. Sheila's recent work is focused partly on today's topic, and she is coauthor of Needs of the Elderly in the 21st Century.

And then after Sheila we will hear from Karyne Jones. Karyne is president and CEO of the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged. Before that, Karyne was executive director of SBC Telecommunications, and she also served for eight years in the Texas legislature.

Our final presentation today will be by Harry Moody. Harry directs academic affairs for the AARP, and before that he was national program director of Robert Wood Johnson's Faith in Action Program. And he also codirected the National Aging Policy Center on the National Council on Aging.

Today's moderator will be Abigail Trafford, a Washington Post columnist and former health editor there. Her recent book has the same name as her column, which will help you remember it in case you want to buy it. It is called My Time. And she will set the stage for us today and also direct traffic. Thanks.

ABIGAIL TRAFFORD: Welcome, everyone. I look at this as a—I come to this really as a journalist. And I remember when I was editor of the health section of the Washington Post I would be asked, "what is the big health story?" You know, and we had all kinds of things. We had transplants and stem cells and cloning. But over the years it was clear to me that the biggest event was really longevity, and not just longevity but the decline of disabilities in older Americans.

But this is a story that we call—it's a story that oozes, so we don't cover it. And in fact I think we have really not covered this story well at all. If we cover aging, we do it two ways. It is either the disaster scenario, as in, what are we going to do with all of these old people, and we hear this all the time, or it's the denial story, which is, hey, if you take this pill, you have this treatment, you go on this retreat, you do this, you'll never get beyond the effective age of 35.

Well, you know, it's sort of like we just aren't looking at this. Well, part of what I wanted to do in the book that I wrote was to find out about what is really going on with aging. And I sort of stumbled into it and I guess I came back and thought, wow, this is the biggest story of our times. We have created a whole new stage in the life cycle. This is not just a question of adding a few years onto the end of life; we have created in a sense these decades, bonus decades of good health for the majority of people after midlife but before we think of traditional old age. But we don't know it, and there is no roadmap and who are the role models.

Now, the book is very much on role models, on what—how people have achieved in a sense new lives. And I call it My Time because it's up to each of us to find our way. It comes—you know, we have completed the adult tasks of raising our children and fleshing out the resume, and unlike our ancestors, we now have another lifetime. And so I—that is why it's called My Time. It is not a "me time"; it's quite the opposite.

And I found that for individuals there were sort of two things that really mattered in addition to maintaining health, but that was having a purpose and kind of crafting a legacy, and being—and relationships. And so the book is about really how individuals make the most of these decades.

Now the column looks at it from a social perspective. And what I have found is that there is this huge lag. We are not ready for this. Our political leaders don't talk about it in the right way. The workplace is kind of in an old-think way. Education is an old-think way—communities, and in a sense we have a lot of work to do as far as building an infrastructure to deal with this new stage in life.

So that brings us to today and this discussion. And what is wonderful that I see is that there are institutions and researchers who are really looking into this so that we have a framework for how to go forward.

So on that I'm going to turn to our first speaker. Each speaker is going to talk for about six or seven minutes, and then we are going to open it up to questions. So, Scott, let me start with you.

SCOTT BASS: Well, thank you Abigail. Let me say I agree. (Laughs.) That was terrific in terms of the introduction of the subject and in understanding, and I'm going to try and provide a little bit of a context of what productive aging is, a little bit of its history and where it's coming from.

For a number of you, you may be familiar going back to the 1960s and 1970s that there was a classic literature that developed about aging of which—a Pulitzer prizewinning book by Robert Butler was written called Why Survive? And it really laid out the problems and the difficulties that older Americans faced from income, housing, transportation, you name it, and that helped foster an image of what aging is like and some of the challenges we face.

Within our field, within gerontology, it was very much focused on the disabilities and frailties associated with aging. It would be, like, discussing young people, only talking about children with special needs. It really missed the bigger picture. And so to help rectify that, in 1985, Robert Butler again wrote a book, which was—came out of the Salzburg Seminar, which coined the term, "productive aging." And what that was, was an attempt to provide some balance to our discussions about aging and the aging society.

In my own work in 1979—and it really came out of the self-help movement—was the idea that if we were to teach gerontology that certainly young people can be involved in that but there was no reason why older people themselves couldn't be educated and become professionals or advocates or service providers in the aging world. So in 1979 we received funding from an Administration on Aging grant that built a gerontology institute in Boston, which well over a thousand people have gone through and moved into careers in aging. But as I said, this is an attempt to provide some balance and perspective as to what was going on.

In the 1980s there was then another image and stereotype—was that, well, older people are really greedy and they are geezers and they have the good life, and that stereotype also needed to be countered, and there was funding from the Commonwealth Fund and elsewhere to attempt to look at what older people really are doing, and we will be hearing more about that today from the health and retirement survey in terms of what is the profile of today's older people in terms of engagements and contribution back to society.

But essentially the description of what people really are doing, the tremendous resource and asset that we have is a part of the discussion of older people. And the story that it is all doom and gloom as we look to our future, a future of which 20 percent of the population will be 65 and older may be distorted. Remember, other nations have already achieved 20 percent of their population 65 and older and their countries have not collapsed. Sweden is there. Japan by 2010 will be 65 and older, but the United States is projected to be at 2030.

Some of the big-picture questions I would like you to think about—and this is actually one of the central questions in Japan—is for a nation to remain a world economic power, to what extent must it adjust its education and employment practices to reflect a changing demographic population? A big-picture question to think about—when we were talking about the president's talk on competitiveness, we have not discussed a changing demographic. This was the central issue 20 years ago in Japan when they began developing their aging policy.

Have we fully assessed and understood the potential of engaging the untapped potential of those in their third age; that is referring to post—traditional post-retirement ages. We are documenting the extent they are involved, but what is the potential? In the Commonwealth Fund study we found 5.4 million people ready and able to return to work, and that one out of every three would be interested in returning to volunteer roles.

A third question is—and Abigail addressed this a bit—is what is the role, meaning, and purpose in later life when you're relatively healthy and active and can look forward to 20 or more years of the same? What is our role?

And we use a term in Japan, which is also driving some of their policy, called "ikigai," and that is a word I would like you to remember. "Ikigai" means meaning and purpose. That is not happiness; that is not fun. It means purpose in life—what gets you up in the morning, and we need to discuss that as we talk about an extension of life and what is our role when we have raised our children, had our family, had our major careers; how can we contribute to society?

And then final big-picture question is to what extent should all citizens regardless of age have the ability and choice to participate in all phases of economic and social activities. Now, we can say, well, they are all available, but to what extent are there barriers and restrictions, and how do we help pave a way and build a ladder so that it is no different than a young kid coming out of high school or college and exploring different opportunities. We are at different stages in our lives, and we need to look at that infrastructure.

The definition of productive aging, the most commonly used, is any activity by an older individual that produces goods or services, or develops the capacity to produce them whether they are paid or not. And that was developed in '93 by Caro, Bass, and Chen. That has—included in that would be volunteering—we will be hearing more about that—either formal or informal; caregiving, sick and disabled, children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren in terms of caregiving; of course employment. And the last, which is often forgotten, is career-related education, which is used to then move into new careers—is that we need to recognize that retraining may be important or training programs important as we look to new careers.

Now, there have been others who have talked about that definition—added components. Herzog added housecleaning and home repair. Beren (sp) talked about a number of non-monetized items that could be included in that. That includes psychological and social dimensions. But the point is—is that that is pretty much the basic categories and what we'll be talking about today.

I just want to focus for a few minutes on the area of work among those categories, and I want to remind you that we have a long history and tradition where we have discouraged older people from work, and that in 1950, 46 percent of those 65 and older were in the workforce—men 65 and older. Today it's 17 percent. So we have had policy, which was culturally accepted, which provided upward mobility for younger workers, it provided a respite from obligations of work, it reduced employers' costs, and it was legal to have mandatory retirement in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and there were pension incentives to retire.

So we had a tradition for about 50 years where it was normative to retire. We have—we are now moving through a period of developing neutrality in our policies towards work of which within four more years social security will be—a delayed retirement credit will become actuarial neutral. So we have moved from reverse to sort of neutral; you could sort of do what you want, and I would like to argue that we should look at a policy climate for pro-work policies, and there are reasons to do that, which include reducing barriers that older people face in terms of potential discrimination in the workplace, to provide additional income.

As we know, the pensions are limited for many of the baby boomers to enhance American competitiveness, to expand the labor supply. And remember, when you look at an agency like NASA that within the next four years 35 percent of its current workforce reached eligible retirement ages, and we do not have a population of young scientists and engineers to take those positions to encourage innovation, to reduce dependence on the state and family, and on and on. There is a myriad of reasons to consider moving from neutral to forward.

We have a wide range of policy tools to deal with that from taxation, federal policy, federal regulation, federal programs, leadership, and incentives that we can do, and support for state policy and planning.

I will hold—I have five selected pro-work incentives that I will throw out later in terms of options that we can look at in terms of policy, but the policy tools do affect the way older people choose to work, not volunteer, and we have not maximized. So I would like to argue that we need to open up and really recognize the potential that is there and maximize that potential for the nation. Thank you.

MS. TRAFFORD: Thank you very much. Thank you. Let's turn to you, Sheila.

SHEILA ZEDLEWSKI: Thank you, Abigail.

I am going to provide some highlights of some research recently completed here at the Urban Institute by myself and my colleagues, Richard Johnson, Simone Schaner, who are here, and Barbara Butrica. It's based on the 2002 health and retirement survey that is tracking people as they move through these older ages.

With today's older adults, those age 55 and older are a busy group. Thirty-nine percent are working for pay. One-third volunteer formally; over half volunteer informally, and 39 percent care for family members. Overall, eight in ten older adults are engaged in one of these activities, and over half are engaged in multiple activities.

And rates of engagement remain pretty high as people age. In fact, those who are 65 to 74, over 80 percent of them are also engaged in these activities, including 29 percent who are still working, then rates begin to drop off and people turn about age 75.

Well, older adults who are engaged report greater satisfaction with their retirement, independent of other factors that affect retirement satisfaction such as money and health. Also the likelihood of being very satisfied in retirement goes up with the number of hours of engagement, but only up to a point.

For example, among those saying they are satisfied with retirement, over four in ten are engaged in multiple activities. In contrast, only one-quarter of those who are unengaged are satisfied with their retirement, with retirement defined as not working at all.

Also, most of those working for pay say they enjoy it, including 95 percent of those who are 65 and older and in the labor market. It contrasts with some of our ideas that people who are older and working are only doing it because they have to. But older adults that report caregiving can—do report some stresses. Those engaged only in caregiving activities are less likely to be satisfied with retirement than others.

The current economic value of older adults' engagement is substantial. Using some fairly conservative assumptions, we estimate that the unpaid activities by older adults accounted for $162 billion of economic value or $27,000 per person on average. Caregiving accounts for about $100 billion of this total, with $61 billion in value created by those carrying for older people, i.e., those with disabilities, and $39 billion in child care. And this is all in addition to the $768 billion in paid work among this population.

And our findings suggest some interesting individual characteristics associated with engagement. For example, men are no less likely to volunteer than women once you control for other differences between the sexes. Whites and African Americans are equally likely to volunteer, with Hispanics being a little less likely to do so. But African Americans are significantly more likely to be involved in caregiving activities than other race or ethnic groups.

Those with higher educations and higher incomes are more likely to volunteer than others, and those who value religion are much more likely to volunteer than others. But we don't know whether this means that people involved in religion are more likely to find opportunities for volunteering, i.e., when they go to church, or whether it reflects some kind of an altruistic motive.

But interestingly, the results do not show a big shift towards volunteer activities when people retire. In fact, people are only slightly more likely to be involved in volunteering after they stop working than when they are still working at older ages.

Some of these findings may be helpful to target opportunities for engagement, both paid work and volunteerism among older adults. While we don't know what baby boomers will do when they approach retirement, we do have ample survey evidence saying that many boomers would like to work at least some during retirement, and we have lots of evidence that shows that those who are engaged are more happy with retirement, and we know that it creates a lot of economic value.

So it is valuable to examine some of the opportunities that are out there now to expand work and volunteerism among older adults to draw some lessons for the future. These are activities supported, for example, the by the corporation of national community service, the AARP, and others. And our panelist, Karyne Jones, will talk about how her organization approaches work among older adults. Thank you.

MS. TRAFFORD: Thank you very much. Karyne, let's turn it to you.

KARYNE JONES: Thank you very much. And I am really, really honored to be on this panel with all of these distinguished people who do research for their living and certainly know all of the statistics and the backgrounds of everything. I am a former lobbyist/politician, who ended up heading up one of the oldest and the only African-American elder organizations in this country that focuses solely on low-income minorities and their activities both in health and in employment and in housing.

And I came—I tell you that to let you know that I don't have a lot of statistics but I have a lot of real-world stories to tell you how productive living is something that is crucially important, particularly in the low-income community. It's not a really pretty picture.

I have the opportunity to speak to a lot of young people at different forums and I tell them all of the time that aging is not just old people; aging is all of us, and if you are blessed with a long life, one day you will get there. So it's something that you should be concerned about when you're young so that you can start working towards the quality of your life when you get older.

In December my son and his wife made me a grandmother for the first time and I was dealing with that in itself other than turning 52. And I was sitting in a meeting at the White House conference on aging and they started talking about grandparents, and heretofore that was "other people." And it dawned on me—wait a minute; that is you. And it is a different perspective when it starts to become you but that just happened to me, like, overnight. Later on that night I was over at a hotel meeting some friends who were in town, and I was down in the bar waiting for them, and the guy ID'd me. So I'm kind of in between—(laughter)—everything that goes—I loved him. I said you have got to be kidding me. He is like, "gotta see your ID." I said, "with pleasure."

Anyway, it's a unique experience for me to now be in the aging field because I think it is the most important area that we as Americans, globally but certainly here in America, will face.

My particular organization, the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged, NCBA, is a 35-year-old organization, and it was founded by some very forward-thinking African-American aging professionals who decided that there wasn't enough attention focused back in the late '60s and '70s on the issues that were sort of exclusive, we felt, to African Americans, particularly poor African Americans in the Southern states, mostly in the Southern states.

From that time we have built up a housing program, a health and wellness program, but our biggest program is our employment program because what we are finding is, is that for many of the people that we have to—our constituency, these are people that don't necessarily want to work but have to work, and that age is not a defining term for a choice for them, but it is something that they have to do to maintain their living ability.

We also have to deal with the reality that we're still dealing with people who are dealing with literacy and educational deficiencies, people with language barriers, people with cultural barriers, and these are problems getting into any of the workforce when you're young, so you can imagine what it must be like when you are getting older.

We deal with people who have been domestics in situations. Their time has run out; they leave without pensions and health care and other things, but they still are in need of working, and so one of the opportunities that we have with the program that we do—the SEP program, which is a Title V program, which is authorized under the Older Americans Act.

We provide training and find employment opportunities for them with the hope then that the employer will—we subsidize their employment for a year, and then the employer picks them up as a full-time employee once they see their work and how they contribute. And we have a very, very high rate. It's not just us; we have 13 other national organizations that we do this. But they can see the worth of it.

My organization is very focused on working on the age discrimination barrier, which is something that we are very optimistic about because so many of us are getting older. And we think that down the road there won't be an issue because people will be workers. The Older Americans Act did many, many things, and one of the things was get rid of some of the legal barriers to age discrimination. It is the mindset now within our society that has to change, that as people get older they can't produce, they can't do—they are not able to do, which is totally not true.

We have people that work within our organization—as a matter of fact, the receptionist at my office is 79 getting ready to go on 80 and can outdo any of the young people that work within our office in terms—because of her eagerness and her willingness to want to do it. And so if I had to put her up against any of my younger employees who feel like, you know, they are trying to hurry to get up where I am, she is very settled and happy with her position in life and where she is, so her outlook is different, so she looks at work in a different way and contributes greatly to the running of this organization being the face and the first person that greets anybody to do business with us.

Our employment programs are essential—and of course we are very concerned because they are a little under attack right now with this budget that was produced yesterday, but the whole idea is, is that the need is not only greater now, but because we know that there is an increase in the older population, you would think that the focus would be on ensuring that there are opportunities for people to be productive, particularly with the theme being self-reliance, self-responsibility, self—all that is there, and then you take away the opportunity for people who want to do that.

And so it all ties into it when you have older Americans—and again, our focus is on low-income minorities, but we are concerned about the whole process, and hopefully, hopefully over time—I still feel very, very optimistic that as we all age, that the attitude and the insight will change, and with that change it won't be a topic of discussion as we are stealing with on issues of racism and classism and some of those others.

But I think—because everybody is going to get older, and we're going to be healthier, and we're going to be able to contribute more, I am hoping and very optimistic that things will change in this country to set and to get us ready for those things.

Aging, again, is not something that is just old people. And as soon as we get the idea of productive—that productive aging is not just them or somebody else before you, it really is all of us, and we have got to encourage young people. We do a lot of intergenerational activities with young people. And it was a point that Scott made, that, you know—well, I will talk about that in a minute.

But it's just very important for us as we move forward, particularly with my organization. And when I was chosen for the position I was somewhat concerned because I felt like they needed somebody who was able to come in and really be able to give the statistics that go along with all of the needs that were there. But I was told by my board that they felt like they needed somebody who could go up on the Hill, and who could go into the—(inaudible)—organization and basically try to educate people from the stories that we have.

I have so many older people that I work with that we have given an opportunity to have a new career, which is one of the most enlightening things. I wish I could take all of them from the different states where they are and bring them to Washington and let them tell firsthand to their congressmen the importance that the SEP program has done and made in their lives. Not only are they contributing to the communities where they are, but in themselves that they are able to take of them, they are not then having to be on the welfare system or any other system that requires anybody to take care of them. So it's just sort of ironic that, again, those programs would be under attack right now.

There are so many good stories. I feel very optimistic. I hope that those of you that are here understand the importance of working within your own areas of expertise and increasing the awareness on aging, and particularly what productive aging is. And in the employment area, it is particularly important because I think there is just the greatest contribution to be made by older Americans.

And older Americans at this point is 50. And I know that I certainly am not ready to retire, and not just because financially I couldn't but because I just feel like there is still so much to contribute in the position that I am in and with the people that I work with.

So I hope that you take away from this panel today an inspiration to work within your areas to make sure that when we talk about productive aging that you have made a difference in making sure that every American has a quality of life and moves towards that. Thank you.

MS. TRAFFORD: Thank you very much. And you picked on something that I wanted to elaborate on, and that is the use of language when we talk about aging. And I think—you know, I have—I'm a grandmother and I have a 7-year-old grandson. And I see him about every month or so, and every time I see him he is totally different, and I think, you know, he is the one who is really aging fast. (Laughter.)

MS. JONES: That is right; that is right.

MS. TRAFFORD: And then I think, wouldn't it be nice when he saw me he would come up, throw his arms around me, and say, "oh, my, granny, how you have grown"—(laughter)—because that is true, too. And so with that, let me turn it over to you, Rick.

HARRY R. MOODY: Hey, I like that. I like Karyne's optimism. But I have got to tell you about this ID carding business. Exactly a year ago this month I turned 60, and I went to this museum and I said, hey, I can get one of this discounts, right. So I was about to whip out my card, and the lady said, oh, no, no, you don't need to show your card! (Laughter.) I mean, yeah, I work for AARP, true, but not all news is welcome.

And on that note let me say that I am in favor of productive aging. It's a good thing, okay. But every—there needs to be a skunk at the garden party, and some of my friends in the audience know that I play that role. So what I have to do is to tell you, Scott, as we were coming up in the elevator, and you said to me, "well, doesn't everybody agree that productive aging is a good thing now, kind of, right?" And I said not everybody agrees; not everybody agrees, and that is one I want to talk to you about.

I will be having a debate at the American on Society on Aging meeting in two months with my good friend Martha Holstein on productive aging: Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I take the view that it is a good thing. However, it is not obvious. Why is it not obvious?

Okay, Matilda Riley, a name that may ring a bell with some folks in this audience, a great lady, now deceased, sociologist. She used to say starting 20 years ago or so, the way trends are going in our society, in the 21st century, early retirement will continue, people will stay in school longer and longer, and eventually people will stay in school till age 37 and retire at 42. (Laughter.) That didn't happen; it's not going to happen, but it underscores an important question: Who is going to pay for longer lives?

Now, one of the people who is asking that unpleasant question, talk about skunk at the garden party, is Pete Peterson, who writes a book called Gray Dawn, in which—it's not yet Halloween but he wants us to get very, very frightened—very, very frightened because his claim is we cannot afford an aging society. And part of that rhetoric—and Scott alluded to it in the 1980s in terms of generational equity—part of that rhetoric is precisely what brings about the push on productive aging. We can't afford to have people work till—stay in school till 37 and retire at 42; therefore, we have to have them work longer.

Now, I am going to come back to the issue of is there more to life than work, all right. And I said I am in favor of productive aging, and some people will say, well, wait a minute; what about all of these other things? I used to be the chairman of the board of Elderhostel, okay. I believe in things other than work in later life; I really do.

But for this discussion I am going to focus primarily on work and work life extension because that is the ideological flashpoint, the point at which people disagree, argue, get unhappy, et cetera, et cetera, where it becomes a policy issue, not just in this country but in Japan and in particularly in Western Europe. And I'm going to give you a clue as to why you are seeing those headlines about Muslims rioting in the street. Yes, it has something to do with population aging. That will keep you guessing for a minute.

Okay, here is my point. By the way, when Pete Peterson—I met him not long ago, and he was talking about his book, Gray Dawn, and this gloomy picture of the future, and he said, "Ted Sorenson introduced me at a meeting recently and he held up my book, Gray Dawn, and said, 'this is the kind of book which once you put it down you won't be able to pick it up.' " (Laughter.) And he was absolutely right. He was absolutely right because this is gloom and doom talk. And George Bush for the last year, till he stopped talking about Social Security, has been trying to frighten us into saying that we cannot afford an aging society.

Now, guess what; some folks believe that and they are mostly in Europe, and because Europe is further advanced in this process of population aging, and if you're Italian or somebody like that you can retire at age 55, or 58, or, you know, one of these wonderful things. So the Europeans have fights about raising the retirement age, real political fights. Ask Angela Merkel, who recently became chancellor of Germany.

So this is the hard version of productive aging. You could—productive aging is real easy to achieve: You just raise the age of eligibility for benefits, whether private or public. Lo and behold, people have to work longer. That is one way of achieving productive aging, folks. I quoted Jesse Jackson, who said under slavery we had full employment. Okay, you can have productive aging just by raising the age of Social Security higher and higher. That is the hard version. We don't like that; we don't want to do that. That takes away people's choice, which we believe in, in America.

Therefore we favor—we, meaning the AARP—the soft version, which means retraining, placement of people, the business case for workers 50-plus. And I'll come back to that in a second. That is our latest publication. We are not going to get a fight about this because we are giving people a choice, and we're emphasizing that an older population is, what, untapped resources, so call that our second approach. The hard approach: no choice; the soft approach: all choice.

Here is a third approach: age discrimination. Yes, Virginia, there really is age discrimination. And wouldn't it be wonderful with all of the optimists on the panel, including you, Karyne, to believe that it will quietly disappear. Well, guess what; it is very hard to prove cases of age discrimination, very, very hard. We file lots of those cases. Stu Cohen, head of litigation at AARP, will tell you all about it.

Age discrimination ultimately runs up into the issue that until these much-discussed labor shortages arrive—and I have been hearing about these labor shortages for at least 25 years since I got involved in the field of aging—soon there will be a labor shortage and we will do away with the problem of older workers and employment and all of—well, this is may happen, but for now we are faced with three policy options: the soft approach, the hard approach, and the intermediate approach, fighting on the grounds of age discrimination.

Let me make one other comment, which was not made here except implicitly, and that is the notion that work is good for your health. It reminds me of The Bridge on the River Kwai, remember that?

MS. TRAFFORD: Yes.

MR. MOODY: Where the commandant of the prisoner in war camp used to say be happy in your work. I am all in favor of work; I said I am in favor of productive aging, but guess what; for thirty years now, the literature has shown—Gordon Straub showed it originally—retirement is not bad for your health. When people win the lottery, they mostly retire. Guess what; they do that, okay. And when people are given benefits, they mostly retire. That is why the age of retirement has been dropping for about a hundred years, one of the longest trends in economic history.

But guess what; it started to reverse about 15 years ago. And Jo Quinn, if you want the statistics, my economist friend will tell you all about it. And so we have a very interesting phenomenon. Productive aging isn't an option; it is becoming a reality, and maybe we'd better figure out a way to make it work better—that is fight the suits on age discrimination, retain and place older workers, and above all, do what my organization, AARP, has done, which is issue a publication called "Reimagining America."

So I do believe, along with the other members of this panel as I said at the outset, I am all in favor of productive aging, but I do not believe that it will necessarily come easily or painlessly or without serious policy debates. And I said that I would conclude with my comment about why they are rioting in Europe.

There are three basic approaches to deal with this issue. One, you import younger workers. That keeps your dependency ratio in good shape. That is what we do in the United States. Half of the immigration in the world comes to this country. I am all in favor of it, by the way. I happen to be married to an immigrant.

A second approach is no immigration. That is what the Japanese do. Big sign on the outside—do not come here if you're an immigrant, so they have got a real problem with productive aging, and not surprisingly they happen to be a world leader, and Scott knows about it because he has been in Japan and has studied productive aging there. They happen to be a world leader in figuring out how to deal with the fact that they are not importing any immigrants.

And that leaves us with Europe. Unlike the U.S., where we import immigrants and do a reasonably good job of assimilating them, thank you, Europe also imports immigrants because they are in the process of going out of business. Western Europe is disappearing. You heard it here first. Within a hundred years or a little more than that, countries that you have known and loved like Spain, Italy, Germany, will be going bye-bye.

Their populations are shrinking; their populations are aging, and they don't want to do that, so they have to import those workers, and that is what they are doing, but they haven't figured out how to assimilate them because they have 15—5 million Muslims in France. Whatever the numbers—we're not even sure about those numbers—but there are huge numbers, and they are mostly from Turkey and Algeria, North Africa, et cetera, et cetera, just as most of our immigrants are from Latin America.

So we have figured out how to do it with immigration. We have bought ourselves some time—30 years according to what Scott said—about right. The Europeans have not bought themselves time. They are facing it right now. They don't know what to do about immigration. They don't know what to do about population aging. They are fighting elections based on raising the retirement age, which they do not want to do, but they have no choice. They are faced with bad choices.

We have lots of good choices—that is American exceptionalism for you—but we do have choices, and that is what we should be debating and discussing. Thank you.

MS. TRAFFORD: Thank you very much. Well, now I think we are going to open it up for questions. But I get to ask a first question. And I just sort of wanted to pick up on something, Scott, you were talking about, and that is, okay, we all want to work—and I agree with Rick; we don't want to work too much, but we do want to work. And you talked about some pro-work policies that you would like to share with us. Maybe you could tell us a few of those.

MR. BASS: Well, the first is that not everybody wants to work. What we want to do is provide options for those who choose to work. Remember, most older people are retired and have indicated they would like to return to work, but those terms may be different than the careers they had when they were younger. And they are interested in some flexibility in terms of time, and there are those—again, we are talking about such a diverse population. There are those who have to work.

So there is really a wide range of issues out there. But one of the programs that I did want to talk about in terms of pro work—we can talk about tax credits for companies to retain older workers, we can talk about tax—individual tax credits for individuals to get retrained to go back to work. But I also want to look at the latter itself in terms of options that provide this kind of flexibility that older people are looking for.

And one of the interesting models in Japan is called the Silver Human Resource Center. And I think we are at a time where we're experimenting with other models of a career ladder for older people is really due in America. We could do some demonstration programs that explore new kinds of centers that would allow people to work without necessarily the intensity of their earlier careers, but to do work that is meaningful to themselves and their community.

The Sliver Human Resource Center is somewhere between a senior center in America and a sheltered workshop. These are companies that are subsidized in terms of their cede (?) funds to get started in Japan to provide contracted labor, contracted services back to their communities, and they make money, and they pay an hourly wage, minimum wage to their workers.

An example of the kind of industry that could be—that is done in Japan is they take used bicycles, they repair them, and they use that money to provide salaries to older people. It creates a whole economy. Now, that was in conflict with some of their local industries, and what they did is then export those bicycles to China and then use that money as revenue to themselves.

So I just want to say that we are really at a time where the creative ingenuity of our older people are there. Our public policies haven't even been touched in terms of what we could do, and I think that is one example.

MS. TRAFFORD: Well, let's move on and let's see some questions from all of you of what we have laid out here as a real challenge. Have you got some questions? Yes. I want you to wait for the microphone to come around because we are recording this. And please say who you are and where you are from.

Q: Hi. My name is Aisha Bonner and I am a doctoral student at Howard University. I'm working on some research with my professor in Edgewood Terrace, which is a—you're familiar with it. Okay, it's in D.C. And I wanted to ask you, Ms. Jones, what are you seeing about the health of the people you work with because I—you know, you hear all of the time that the aging population is the healthiest it's ever been, but the people that I work with and see in my research are not healthy and I'm curious if you're seeing that with the group of people you work with as well.

MS. JONES: Well, thank you very much for the question. And let me just say first that when you work in poverty areas and in areas where you're still dealing with health disparities and employment discrimination and housing discrimination, you have to be optimistic to go think that things are going to get better because if you think things are going to stay the same or get worse, you won't want to go to work, and then I'll be one of those people out there that you're talking about that—you know.

And so I try to remain optimistic because I just have a greater hope. I mean, I'm sort of a student of the Martin Luther King era because I happened to work for Andrew Young for many years, and one of the things he instilled in us—(audio break, tape change)—we still know that, particularly in the African-American community, that we still have the greater health issues. It was interesting—I was at a function a couple of weeks ago and they were saying that, you know, we die of heart disease and diabetes and all of those things, and if we're able to survive that, we have a 50 percent chance greater of getting Alzheimer's. So it's like, damn. (Laughter.) I mean, you know—and so it's almost like, well, it's like where's the hope?

But those are things that still have to be addressed when you talk about productive aging, obviously. So one of the things that my organization does—and we've worked very closely with the administration on aging where we've gotten a grant—well, we've been going out to churches where we can find the greatest numbers of seniors that we can gather together. We're at about seven different states, and we want to expand that, but we go in and we're teaching them again about health issues—what to work on, how to reduce obesity, what to look for and signs of it—and then we're teaching them to be advocates to go out to their peers and tell them and explain that to them.

So we're seeing a little change. Obviously there is still a lot to be done, and I think that we'll continue to try to—not just my organization, but others, and particularly at Edgewood Terrace; it's a site now with a lot of activities going. We did a computer program site over in there, so we've been working. And that's sort of like a pilot, and hopefully the information that you've done with your research and some of the others we can utilize to go and take to the Hill to get some policy changes and hopefully some appropriations to address the needs, particularly of low income. So, again, don't have the health care options, and don't have the opportunities, and come with a bigger plate of different things, that we can address those issues and hopefully see some changes.

MS. TRAFFORD: Very, very good point. I think you raise an important issue as we discuss this, that we make sure that the pendulum doesn't swing the other way. They were all talking about productive aging and we're all healthier and this and everything else, but, you know, hey, there are issues as you get older—there are major health issues, and most of us sort of fall into both camps after a while, and how do you develop policies to take into account this kind of range of health status? And one of the things that I found that really is not getting on the agenda a lot is issues of mental health and older populations. So I just throw that out there.

But we have more questions to discuss. Yes—another question over here. Please wait for the mike.

Q: My name is Kay Loughrey and I'm with the Administration on Aging, and my question is for Scott Bass, following up on something you said, that we should move to a more pro-work environment for people 65-plus. And you've piqued my interest on that, as I'm also an aging baby boomer. So if you could tell us a little bit more about that.

MR. BASS: By being a pro-work environment means to look across—and one of the things—let me just say that one of the things about the Administration on Aging and its creation and its legislation is that it is to look for the welfare of older people across the spectrum of government. And what we have often done in policy issues is look categorically at, again, issues. If we are to look broadly across government in terms of the ways that we look at older people and work and volunteerism and say, gee, what are our practices and do they fully tap and provide options for older people, you'd find each agency could contribute to that dialogue.

For example, you would talk to the Department of Labor and explore what their policies and practices are in terms of engagement and support and counseling and actual programs for older people. You talk to the Department of Education and look at the resources that are available for career retraining in community colleges nationwide. You look at the FIPSE program—Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, and look at the kinds of programs they're doing that target older people. And you go through each of the cabinet agencies, including taxation, you look at the regulatory agencies in terms of pension policies, you look at issues in terms of the disabled community, and on and on. I can go through that, and actually that is one of the recommendations that Senator Herb Kohl has brought forward, is that maybe we're at a time where there should be a presidential commission that looks broadly at our polices to see if our practices are different than our objectives. Even when you look at employment in government is that we've all gone through fits and starts about encouraging people to leave their work. Is that the best policy we should do?

So I guess I'm seeing particularly the Administration on Aging as a catalyst agency to help us with that dialogue.

MS. TRAFFORD: Thank you. Yes, another question.

Q: Gene Steuerle, the Urban Institute. Abigail, I'd like to pick up on a couple of comments that you made, both in your pamphlet and here, which had to do with language, but—the first one I noticed that you wrote the Rolling Stones, and my favorite cartoon recently was a couple of gentlemen walking by a sign for the Rolling Stones—you know, the Rolling Stones in concert, and they looked at each other and said, "That reminds me; what about Social Security?" (Laughter.)

But you mentioned language as being all-important, and I'm wondering if we still have not really been honest with ourselves about the language—the language of aging and the language of what it means to be old. To give one statistic, people retired in 1940, 1950 at age 68 on average, with about 12 years of life expectancy. So we might have considered that old. Today, with the same life expectancy they'd retire at 74; in another 40 years they'll retire at 78, at least if projections are correct, and yet we keep defining old by things like 62 and 65. And as long as we define old further and further from death—so people with a third of their adult lives remaining in front of them are calling themselves old—doesn't that have all sorts of implications for how we design social programs, how employers look on employees, how we look on what we can do, what we're entitled to take from society versus give to society? Doesn't the language itself really become a fundamental issue?

MS. TRAFFORD: I mean, I would say absolutely—and it goes back to my idea that this is really a kind of social revolution, and all revolutions need a different kind of language. And one of the reasons we stumble over language is that we have a culture that's very ageist. It's interesting; sort of my—to use old-fashioned language, my conscience has been raised, having sort of looked at this as a journalist, is the great deal of—the many barriers, just cultural barriers and stereotypes and prejudice against aging. I mean, it should be that it's better than not aging. I mean, you know, in other words, it's great. (Laughs.) But we have a real cultural problem, and I think that we don't help ourselves if we just pretend there is no problem here. And it has to do with a lot of fears—fears of death, fears of not being part of the culture, and we do have to look at that, and how you marry that with pro-work policies and education policies.

I think it's a real challenge, and you're absolutely right—language is very important. And I get wonderful e-mails—I mean, there is some language—for instance, retirement—"retire," that's not a good word. That suggests withdrawing from mainstream life. So throw out "retirement." The word—even "elderly." I've had people—you know, they say, you know, a woman, 65, you know, was hurt crossing the street, and they call her an elderly woman. And I'll get messages saying, who are they calling elderly? People don't like to be called senior. So we're in the midst of a real cultural flux.

I mean, maybe, Rick, you have some observations on this.

MR. MOODY: (Off mike)—is always good occasionally. The data shows that the poorer you are, the more you like to be called "old," or "senior," or anything else. The richer you are, the less likely you are to want to be—it's socioeconomic. I mean, this is age identification.

So what that really boils down to is people like us on this panel, we're never going to grow old, and we can be subject to what my colleague, the sociologist Dave Eckert, calls "the busy ethic." And that's what I hear when I talk to people—you know, all these so-called retired academics: "Oh, I've never been busier. I'm this, that, the other thing." (Laughter.) Don't you know people like this? They're constantly jetting off somewhere. I used to see people like this in Elderhostel all the time. We used to give out pins for frequent hostelers, you know, their 80 hosteling trips.

All right, this is one way of dealing with death denial and, you know, they won't get me if I keep moving type of thing. So in a certain sense—I'm one of these people. Believe me, it takes one to know one. In a certain sense, this is good news because it means we're going to be able to sell the concept of productive aging to all these boomers and these upscale people. Not that all the boomers are upscale, by the way; you're right about that. And that's one of the reasons why we need to disaggregate this whole population and stop thinking in averages like, again, my colleague Joe Quinn says, beware the mean. If your head is in the furnace and your feet in the refrigerator and your average temperature is good, that's misguided; that's not true, okay? So we've got to look at the variants in all of these issues, and that's my pitch.

MS. TRAFFORD: Another question. Here's one right here.

Q: Hi, I'm Sheryl Stein from the Urban Institute, and I'm very interested in this conversation because I am one of those people born literally in the year that's never defined as baby boomer; nor is it defined as X—1965, that magic year. And we're framing this conversation in terms of the boomers: The boomers have changed the landscape because the boomers of course are involved in this whole aging thing now, which I'm just beginning to tread my toe in now that I've entered the magical 40s. But I'm wondering, you know, with the conversation—you know, people of my era, my age start talking about things like, you know, there's not going to be Social Security, there's not going to be these social supports, there's not going to be the same kinds of things that we've grown up to think will exist for us when we do hit that age, and therefore we probably will be working. And I'm wondering if anyone has given any thought to that paradigm of, yeah, well, the boomers are in it now but there are those of us who are following short on the heels, and you know, I don't know that we're going to have the opportunity to age productively. I mean, it's going to sort of be foisted upon us, and I'm just curious about that.

MS. TRAFFORD: Who would like that? Sheila, would you like to talk about that?

MS. ZEDLEWSKI: Well, it's a very, very important question and I think it has to do a lot with what people have been saying—how we need a national dialogue on the topic and we need new definitions—it's in flux. And I think as a mother of young sons who are adults now, they tell me they are really tired already of hearing all these articles about aging boomers and what are we going to do about them? And they want to hear about what's going to happen for them, and what about young people and young children? So I think we do need a really good dialogue on the topic, and I don't have any answers for you yet.

MS. JONES: You know, if George Bush had rolled out his Social Security plan 10 years from now, it would have passed because that generation is not expecting anything anyway, so they would have said, "oh, yeah, sure," but because there are still so many of us who know how it used to be, that's why he had such a difficult time. So the time has come that we have to try to deal with what's going to happen with the future in terms of this productive aging. So your point is well taken in that it is generational and there are some things that just need to be addressed.

I mean, my kids say the same thing. It's like Social Security, is that that FICA thing that I keep seeing in my little part-time job, and they're getting mad about it. And so I'm going to put my money—so you're absolutely right, and the dialogue does need to be there, and I hope it would one that is not superficial and that we're just meeting and again just talking about it, but that could really be some substantial policies put in place that are realistic to how we'll change over the next 20, 40 years.

MR. BASS: I've been involved in the issue for 25 years. I've seen very modest or no change at this point, and I think the role that we provide is to build a legacy for the next generation, is that—I'm the oldest in my household; I'm the oldest son, and we pave the way. And my personal responsibility to society is to help advocate and help build structures so that generations who follow won't have the struggle that we're experiencing. I've seen for other older generations of how they've been devalued, treated differently because they look differently or they appear differently. My closest colleague, who—Rick—and I know Sarah (sp) is here—Sarah Ricks is here—just died at age of 94, and we were writing to the very end that chronology is not a marker of one's merit or contribution. And that's not a question of being old or young; it is assessment of who you are.

And I think we need, whether we're talking about race, gender, age, ability, sexual preference, it is trying to look at merit and assigning structures and support systems to allow people to achieve their maximum. So that's what we're looking at, so it's cross-generational.

MS. TRAFFORD: Thank you so much. I just want to throw out one thing. You feel as though Social Security is not going to be there for you, and we keep hearing that, but is that fear—in other words, is that part of what's happened in the rhetoric when we talk about—

MR. MOODY: (Off mike.) This is not a new thing. I am a former college professor. Every time I do my poll with college students in my class for years, they all say the same thing. They don't believe—they support Social Security but they don't believe it's going to be there for them. That's not new. It's gotten worse, admittedly. But guess what? Here's the good news—and this is what we said at AARP. Thank you, George Bush, for raising this problem. We agree with you; this is a legitimate issue. It deserves attention to make Social Security sustainable. There are lots of good ways to do that. Privatization wasn't one of those good ways, so therefore we couldn't agree with it.

On the other hand, George Bush didn't have to raise Social Security. He's not running for reelection again, right? He raised it because he really believes it. This was going to be his legacy, not for selfish purposes, for the next generation. He really believes it. Okay. And same with AARP. He specifically said, okay, guys, anybody 55 and above is exempt from my plan. This is an attempt to split young and old and say, okay the old, you're taken care of; don't worry about it. Guess what? It didn't work because the old turned out to be very concerned with their children and grandchildren.

So there is a lot of intergenerational concern. Despite what the rational choice theorists tell us, people don't just act according to rational choice. They act for all kinds of reasons, and that's good.

MS. TRAFFORD: Yes, so I think the answer is more hope.

Yes, a question back there.

Q: (Off mike)—Urban and American—(unintelligible). I think—isn't part of the problem—and Harry, I think, highlighted this, that as people do age, even into their 60s, there is a greater heterogeneity in terms of health conditions, for example. Let's just name one thing. Now, it may be that we're a lot healthier than we were before—I believe that—but there is still more heterogeneity of people in their 60s than, let's say, in their 40s or in their 30s. And yet we have fairly blunt policies, and the policies are sort of oriented for this sort of general case. And so—and we have very great difficulty in this country in developing sound redistributive polices—polices that, at least after the fact, give from people who happen to be doing better later on to people who are doing worse later on.

So to me the key thing is to figure out a way to allow for this heterogeneity in a more sensible way, maybe through more insurance mechanisms, putting in more things relating to not so much sort of disability but maybe certain particular health incapacities that might trigger a slightly higher component.

Anyway, it seems to me creative ways, that may be one—but, again, maybe that's not the best one because people can overcome health disparities in one case but not in others, but there have to be creative ways to deal with this kind of heterogeneity; otherwise we're going to be stuck because all of these social—whenever you raise some innovation, it does have some trade-offs, and we have to face that.

MS. TRAFFORD: Sheila, do you want to comment on that?

MS. ZEDLEWSKI: That's a tough one. Certainly the older population is heterogeneous, but you get factors like lower income, African Americans dying younger than others, and in fact when you move on, you know, that population has a shorter lifespan, and we never look at what their return is on things like Social Security and so on over their lifespan, which changes the way it looks a lot.

Yeah, I think we certainly need new ideas, new kinds of insurance against health risks and things like that. It's a complicated and broad set of issues. It's a tough one—tough question, Bob.

Does anybody else have a—

MR. MOODY: Be careful what you wish for; you might get it. Here is a system: college financial aid that's highly targeted. It's also impossible to understand. The same is true for lots of private health insurance, and, lest I mention it, Medicare Part D. The more you try to target, the more complicated things get. One of the great successes of Social Security is that for most people it's relatively simple to understand when they get it.

MS. TRAFFORD: Very good. Yes, a question here.

Q: I'm Barbara Woodall. I embarked on a second career as a fellow on the Senate Special Committee on Aging. As a former litigator, however, I've been fairly distressed with the—at least I haven't seen the argument being made on the Hill that productive aging is really an answer to what people are wringing their hands about, at least a partial answer. This gets into—is it Dr. Moody or Mr. Moody's—hard, hard answer versus soft answer, and that sort of thing. But I'm just curious about the efforts that are being made to—I see this value of unpaid activities, and that's a fabulous tool in making the argument. But it seems to me that a stronger argument could be made, and I'm wondering what's going to be done about that.

MS. TRAFFORD: Let's have everybody take a whack at—

MR. MOODY: See me later. We'll give you lots of material, including the business case for workers—

Q: I have them all.

MR. MOODY: You've got them all, okay. Oh, you've got all that stuff.

MS. TRAFFORD: But you raise a really good question, and that is why isn't this front and center for our political elite? What's the matter? Why isn't it out there? And you may have a partial answer, but I think I'd like everybody on the panel to comment on that. Karyne, why don't you go first? Why isn't this front and center on the political stage?

MS. JONES: I don't know why it doesn't take a real high priority; I just know that I work with 52 national organizations based in Washington. We comprise the Leadership Council on Aging. And we as an organization are not allowed to lobby. There are organizations that do—our counterparts over there, AARP, who bring 35 million membership backing them up. And then we have other colleagues that work very hard, and I know they do bring these issues to the forefront with our Congress.

But it's like with anything; you know, it's the wheel that squeaks gets the attention, and I guess it just hasn't squeaked enough. I mean, obviously it squeaked loud enough that Social Security didn't pass as it was presented, but in terms of productivity it's just not something that squeaked loud enough and it's not been an issue. And we know how our government works. It's whatever the hot issue, they'll address it immediately. If it's something that's not, we'll just have hearing after hearing after hearing after hearing on it. We'll study it, we'll, you know—and it just kind of goes on.

Q: Well, I challenge you all to become a squeaky wheel.

MS. JONES: Well, listen, I'm as squeaky as I can possibly be—(laughter)—and I come with the added value that I still have to deal with the issue of racism, which is something that this country never wants to address openly. No one really, really wants to admit to it, and we're still dealing with people who still use this term "colorblind society" and all that kind of stuff when in reality we know that that is not the truth in this country.

So, I mean, we're still dealing with those issues and now you're going to confound it with a black old person and a poor person? It's tough. It just doesn't get the sort of attention that it should. So we squeak, and AARP squeaks, and COA squeaks—I mean, we all do; it's just not something that has risen to the level that it needs to, and we've got to work a little harder, with the help of other people.

MS. TRAFFORD: Scott, do you want to—

MR. BASS: You've raised a good question as to where this issue is on the political spectrum. Greg O'Neill is here from the Gerontological Society, who reminded me that about eight years ago there were congressional hearings on productive aging—actually I testified at that—and that it has not had a lot of political traction. Nonetheless, we have to look at social change over a time period. Rick had mentioned the name Matilda White Riley. Matilda White Riley argued that what you have is a—when change takes place in terms of culture change, which we are going through, that our structures lag, they take time, and either—if we look at these events in history, either they come together in a fairly volatile fashion in terms of then working through the change, or there is a process to move along.

We are approaching that point where there will be conflicts and questions about what's going to happen, and I don't know whether the structural lag that's come about because of cultural change will be an orderly and a process kind of transition. The reason why I'm optimistic in terms of the sequence is that there is funding available for this forum and for this research. This is very important, the fact that you're here today. Years ago when we'd have sessions like this there would be three or four people and there would all be older people in the room. This is different. The questions asked are qualitatively different than they were eight years ago.

So I'm saying that we're making progress that people who are in their 70s and 80s are forming companies, are starting initiatives, are creating that change as we speak. There are countless innovations happening outside the beltway. So my answer is I don't know but I don't see—I see a positive direction and I see change on the horizon.

MS. TRAFFORD: Rick.

MR. MOODY: I agree with him. I just want to pay tribute to this gentleman on my left because 10 or 12 years ago when he started pushing this—he's not exaggerating, three or four people—and there was a lot of folks out there who were hostile to this idea, and some who are still debating me. So we've made some progress; we're going forward.

MS. TRAFFORD: Yes?

MS. ZEDLEWSKI: We've talked a lot about workup at this panel, and it's certainly an important part of the answer. I wanted to point out Gene Steuerle and some other colleagues just did a study looking at the value of people just working one more year—the value to Social Security, to themselves, their economic security, and so on. But the thing we haven't talked much about is caregiving, and as you point out, the study shows that $100 billion in value is being generated by older adults caring for others. And they might be caring for their grandchildren as their primary child caregivers, but more often it's caring for older parents. And I think that conversation occurs on the Hill. We have conversations about long-term care. We have maybe a few people talking about productive aging, but we've got to put it together because it isn't all just about work; it's also about caregiving and how that really offsets government costs and the need for people to go in the nursing homes. It's hugely important.

MS. TRAFFORD: Yes, we have more questions. Here and over there. We have two questions here. We'll do you next.

Q: Hi. Adam Carasso with the Urban Institute. One thing I've been struck by during this panel is how everyone has talked up all the benefits of productive aging but no one has really touched on what I think is the inevitability of productive aging, because—I mean, suppose in this country we don't formally have a debate about raising the retirement age, as Harry alluded to. Well, in the absence then of raising our contributions to our retirement system, pension benefits are going to start to go down, Social Security benefits won't be fully paid, we will outlive our private savings. These forces will tend to make people go to work, whether they want to or not. That is, if they want to continue their standard of living into retirement. So I'd just be happy to hear anyone address that.

MS. TRAFFORD: Who wants to—yeah. I think the challenge is where are the jobs, and what kind of jobs, and how do you build that infrastructure? I think people will work more.

Yes, a question.

Q: Hi, my name is Mirsada Pasilic (sp), and I was wondering, what role do you believe media plays in promoting these issues and getting it out there? I think that that's part of the pervasive ageism that affects this country, is the media and how, you know, botox—you know, everybody is wanting to stay younger, and how to age gracefully. And if you look at most of the networks when they're covering aging, they're talking about how to age gracefully and how to stay younger longer as opposed to some of the caregiving issues that you were discussing. So I just wanted to know what you see as how that's addressed.

MS. TRAFFORD: I wish, as a member of the media, I could be—I mean, I think that we—and I include myself—that we've done a terrible job on this. And one of things is, about the media, is people always think that we have a role to educate people and promote good causes and stuff like that, and actually we don't do that at all. Our role is, you know, to tell stories and try to chronicle the world as it is, and we get some of it right and a lot of it wrong and some of it in between, but I think that we have missed this story.

One of the problems is that providing a utopia, doing a story that's going to tell people that they can never—that they will look 35 forever, that's an easy story to do as opposed to explain long-term care issues in your family. So I think we have to find out, how do we cover this? And I would say it starts with—when we cover aging issues, we cover it as what's happening to "them." They're apart from us and the media, and I think that's the first step that makes our coverage just, you know, inadequate. I think whether we cover Iraq or politics or sports, the good coverage comes because it's about "us." And as soon as we talk about things that are about "them," all kinds of prejudices which are unconscious come into play.

And so as the media I would just hope that we get lots of stories. And maybe I'll add it right here. You all have my e-mail address. I'm interested in stories. I'm interested in what's going on. So get in touch with me if you see outrage or also solutions. I think it's going to be very slow, but it starts with what's happening outside the media before we can get the media to change.

On the last point about television and magazines and just their choices of who they feature, there are a lot of good studies on the image of older people: It's almost absent on television. Well, I think we've just got to complain. Somehow you've got to change that. As far as the television is concerned, the audience stops at 49. Well, you know, who do they think watches them, you know? I mean, it's crazy. I mean, it's unbelievable how crazy it is. But stand up and scream. I think we've got to have some screamers in this change.

So how about some other voices here?

MS. JONES: I just want to say, when I was at Harvard I took a class with Marvin Kalb—some of you may remember him—and the class was on media and public policy and how it influences that whole process. And basically we found out, particularly in the process of discussion—and he had all kinds of different people come in and speak to us—and it sort of goes back to your question, sir, in terms of the inevitability of productive aging and what's going to happen with it, is that we find that media is very reactive, and when this becomes a real issue and a problem, then they'll write about it. I mean, we were inundated with Medicare Part D, and everybody tried to explain it. We had the simple facts, the simple way to read it—Medicare D for dummies. They talked about the pros, the cons, and nobody still understands it.

And so I'm just saying I think the media basically certainly can make a difference in the way that the policy changes, but in that whole reality I think media plays a major role in educating, because that's how we get our source of information. I mean, nobody reads and studies it as they should. And so I'm, again, very optimistic that as we move ahead—and of course it does affect us because, again, "us" is "them," and that's everybody in here because we're all headed in that direction. So the inevitability is that productive aging will become an issue and the media will react to it once it's something that's a real issue within us.

MS. TRAFFORD: Just a quick thing. We used to have a standard for a good health story, a good story. It was the PPPM standard, and it was people—in other words, the story has to be about people, individuals that other people can identify with—power—and that sort of answers the question, who wins, who loses, who pays, and who decides, so that's a whole area. And then there has to be a passion factor, which is why does a reader care? Why do you want to read this? And so you have to have a little passion in this, that this has some tension in the story. And then, finally, M is for money. When you think of the trillions of dollars that changes hands every year in the health and aging field, well, there is a story in following the money.

Now, how do you put that all together? Because if you don't have all those elements, you're going to lose people. If you just have numbers, you know, people go to sleep. And if you just have people who aren't put into context, it's meaningless. It's just another anecdote. So that's hard journalism. And again, all of you can help us in a sense putting it all together.

MR. BASS: Your question is really a very complicated one that—there's a good book called Cultures of Ageing. It is a more theoretical work by two Brits named Gilleard and Higgs. In relation to this topic of productive aging, what they've argued and what we've talked about is productive aging is not merely an extension of youth. It's not the same thing and we're not attempting to roll back the years and say you're going to do everything you did when you were younger; we're just going to do that now when you're 80 years old. No, it's a different time of life, and how do we describe that and how do we carve that out as a descriptor? We haven't done that yet.

I'm not a television fan, but we finally got cable in our house. We never had cable. And I'm changing the stations and I do see there's all of this tummy tucks and—

MR. MOODY: We'll get you a car soon.

MR. BASS: (Chuckles.) A car next—automobiles?

MR. MOODY: Automobiles.

MR. BASS: That the media portrayal is one that is trying to retain our youth society, but we're an aging society. So I think what you raised and how we talk about culture and society is what this book addresses, and we don't talk much about the fact of what happens when you get older—your body changes—and that's not a bad thing. And we have it currently coming from our youth society that that's a problem. And a lot of people have even emotional problems because they're trying to create that image throughout their lives, and it's not.

So we need to really recognize as we go through different seasons, how do we age gracefully in a healthy way, in a normative way, and understand that. And we haven't done that particularly well, and that's also part of this transition both in terms of describing—I'm more the policy person; others here can talk more about culture. But again, our media is not portraying that. Also, our marketing—remember, there is money in this. I did go through the newspapers and magazines, and you just clip out how many—"antiaging" is the term used—antiaging products there are, and I think it is this fear, as Rick has alluded to, the fear of death and the way we look at ourselves. And this will take time to sort of grow up about.

MS. TRAFFORD: I sort of think it's happening. The media haven't caught onto it; politicians haven't caught onto it. I mean, an experience I had was going into a television program where everybody is 12 years old, and I remembered being there and then some of the producers and the people come up, and they were 12 years old, and they would sort of pull on my arm and said, "you won't believe what my mom and dad are doing." And then all these stories came out of—in a sense sort of the new chapters and invigoration of their parents, who were all in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. And then after telling the story—and they were just wonderful stories—a young woman who was 30, and just in that zoom zone, she turned and said, "I hope I can do that when I'm their age." And I thought, bingo, she's got it. In other words, it's out there; it's just that in terms of public culture we haven't gotten it. But I think it's out there.

Yes, two questions over here. Wait for the mike please.

Q: Hi. Mary Downs from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. I'm looking at this question through the lens of museums and libraries and what the kinds of services are that they provide to the aging population. We've talked a lot about work and about caregiving, but I wonder if you might comment on what the role of community associations, cultural organizations, cultural institutions in both providing the activities and engaging the aging population.

MS. TRAFFORD: Great. Karyne, do you want to take that?

MS. JONES: Well, my mother, who is 80 and still wears Charles Jourdan heels about that high, which amazes me, is very active and is a docent back in San Antonio, Texas. But traditionally for my community you all have had a real problem in terms of engaging people, not only in becoming docents and volunteers or being a part of it, but also just participating in projects. So I'm probably not the best person to speak on it. I can just tell you that if museums and cultural centers and other things of the like are going to be a part of the productive aging, then they certainly need to come up with ways to engage people into feeling like they're a part of it and that it's representative and something that they're quite interested in.

You know, at 52 I already know I'm not going to be a ballerina. I mean, I just know that. I mean, I might have thought about doing that at 14, but I'm pretty sure where I am and what I'm going to be. I'm not saying that I may not do another career or I might not develop other interests, but I know what my limits are and I'm comfortable with them. And I think that with all organizations, whether it be cultural, social, whatever, that it just has to be meaningful for people to want to participate and be a part of. And so it's just going to be up to the minds of people, and it will be helpful if the people who are making up the—or developing the programs and creating the programs that you want to attract people feel like, what attracts me, and what may attract them may then come out to the greater population of people who are older who are interested in participating.

MS. TRAFFORD: We have really come to the end of our time. We'll take just one more question. Go ahead.

Q: I'm struck by whether there aren't some really big, very difficult underlying questions as we talk about our aging population and the shifts, and we think about what Dr. Bass mentioned with legacy, that some of these problems may require us to look at really deep cultural issues, such as the breakdown of family and community, or the shift that those institutions haven't kept up with—all of these changes in technology and policy. And I just had a conversation with a friend talking about the health care crisis, and what we came up with is so much of the health care dollars go to supporting people in the last two years of life. That's not sustainable. And yet what that calls for is shifting how we as Americans deal with death. That's a pretty heavy issue. How we balance the needs of—like we create legacies within our families—what do I want to do for my children and my grandchildren—but I'm not aware of much conversation in our society about what kind of a legacy do we—I'm the next to the last year of the boomers—what kind of a legacy do we as boomers want to leave for our future?

And those are, for me, missing conversations. And I'm wondering—and some of these are really, really, really hard, but where does that fit into all of this productive aging and effectively dealing with death as we move forward in creating a new kind of a country and a new kind of global community?

MR. MOODY: See me later.

Q: Okay.

MR. MOODY: I'm actually a philosopher of religion and this is my main interest in life, not productive aging. But we have a couple of newsletters at AARP—free newsletters—"Human Values and Aging"—that deal with these things. Happy to put you on the list. Anybody who wants—just give me your e-mail address.

MR. BASS: And we should connect you with a publisher so you can get that book out. That's the one we want to read.

MS. TRAFFORD: Very, very important.

Well, we've come to the end of our time. I want to thank everybody. I want to thank our panelists. Thank you very much. And let's keep this dialogue going. Thank you.

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