{"id":38691,"date":"2024-10-07T11:25:22","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T18:25:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=38691"},"modified":"2024-10-10T18:01:57","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T01:01:57","slug":"will-all-live-to-be-100","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/will-all-live-to-be-100\/","title":{"rendered":"Will all live to be 100+?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2019Absolute futility,\u2019 says the Teacher. \u2018Absolute futility. Everything is futile.\u2019\u00a0 What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?\u201d[1]<\/a> I write this post feeling melancholic while in Washington DC, hence the Bible verse. I am sitting in a hotel room six hours away from my mother-in-law.\u00a0 She is 76 and lies dying in a nursing home.\u00a0 About a week and a half ago (as of this writing) when I saw her, she seemed to be more alert and have more energy than I had seen in a long time; I wondered if this was the burst of energy that some people get shortly before dying. My mother died twenty-two years ago at age 58. Both my mother and mother in-law were stricken with cancer.<\/p>\n

Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott in The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity <\/em>discuss the reality that people are living longer. They suggest that \u201cA child born in the West today has a more than 50 per cent chance of living to be over 105.\u201d[2]<\/a>\u00a0 There are days when this statement is hard to believe, slowly watching my mother-in-law decline over the past year, and previously watching a neighbor decline both mentally and physically. However, there are other days when this feels true. Watching my dad at age 79 navigate a dark, wet, muddy cave where there are spots you almost have to crawl and a recent news story about JoCleta Wilson born Oct 4, 1924 and works 8 hours a week at a Home Depot in Louisville, KY.[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

For us to not only mentally but also physically accommodate this growing reality of longer life spans, Gratton and Scott suggest that age related stages in life need to change in multiple sectors.[4]<\/a> \u00a0I want to briefly mention two sectors, education and employment and then discuss how greater longevity is not equally accessible.<\/p>\n

Education is a sector that I believe is making progress in changing the idea of age-related stages in life. I think our existing cohort is a great example of this change. Last year at this time I was asking myself, why in the world am I pursuing a doctoral degree at age 52, will I live long enough to get a return on my investment? Most of my colleagues where I work either already have their doctoral degrees or are 20 or more years younger than me when they start pursuing the degree. Arriving in Oxford last year and seeing my cohort and the other two allowed me to realize that most people pursuing this degree are not doing so in their twenties (I\u2019m not calling anyone old).\u00a0 It will be great to see more and more people pursuing education later in life.<\/p>\n

A couple months ago we were looking at our presidential candidates and wondering if either candidate should really be seeking a second term at their age. Perhaps in the next twenty to thirty years we won\u2019t even think twice about that but right now the employment sector seem to be changing slowly. JoCleta Wilson holding a job, one that she picked up well into retirement, does not seem to be the norm. In 2018 ProPublica and the Urban Institute released a study showing that 56% of people surveyed who were over the age of 50 had been forced out of a full-time stable job and two-thirds of those will go on to lose at least two more jobs.[5]<\/a> Today there are still jobs that have mandatory retirement ages, air traffic controller, age 56; pilots, age 65; American diplomats, age 65; judges, age varies based on state constitution.[6]<\/a> Will those mandatory ages be pushed back or disappear altogether in the future, time will tell?<\/p>\n

I appreciate that Gatton and Scott discuss the bumps in the road that will be faced at all levels, individually, familial, and societal as we navigate into the world where people living to be 100 or more years will be the norm. Gatton and Scott also present the reality that as of now there still exists inequality within this new norm. In a 2008 video, Unnatural Causes: In Sickness and In Wealth<\/em> released by California Newsreel the city of Louisville, KY is highlighted. In the video they state \u201cIn some areas, people die three, five, even ten years sooner than in others. Cancer and heart disease are almost twice the rate in some areas as in other.\u201d[7]<\/a> This is echoed throughout the country. USA Today in 2019 published the results of a study conducted by NYU, they state \u201cThe gap was huge in some of America’s largest cities. In Chicago, the difference between the neighborhoods with the longest life expectancy level and the shortest was 30.1 years. In Washington, D.C., the number was 27.5 years. In New York, it was 27.4 years. In New Orleans and Buffalo, the figure was 25.8 years.\u201d[8]<\/a> In this study, the gap was attributed to racial and ethnic segregation. In Louisville, KY, researchers there attributed it to cortisol (stress) levels differences, most of that varied based on social class.[9]<\/a> These are areas that we as a nation and we as the body of Christ need to address.<\/p>\n

Of course, as we look forward to, or not, living well into our 80s, 90s or even 100s there are areas that science still needs to address. Why does a 58-year-old die of ovarian cancer, why does women in her 70s develop several meningiomas (tumors that develop on the lining surrounding the brain) requiring 3 different brain surgeries and ultimately death?<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Ecclesiastes 1:2-3 (CSB)<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Gratton, Lynda and Scott, Andrew, The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity, <\/em>(New York, NY: Bloomsbury Business. 2017), 2<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Shannon Cogan, \u201cOldest Home Depot Employee in the Country Lives in Louisville,\u201d Wave News.\u00a0 Accessed on September 27, 2024. https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/us\/oldest-home-depot-employee-in-the-country-lives-in-louisville\/ar-AA1qRddQ?ocid=BingNewsVerp<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Gratton and Scott.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Petter Gossilin, \u201cIf You\u2019re Over 50, Changes Are the Decision to Leave a Job Won\u2019t be Yours,\u201d\u00a0 ProPublica, December 28, 2018, https:\/\/www.propublica.org\/article\/older-workers-united-states-pushed-out-of-work-forced-retirement<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Aurelio Loscin, \u201cJobs with Mandatory Retirement,\u201d Career Trend<\/em>, Accessed on September 28, 2024, https:\/\/careertrend.com\/jobs-mandatory-retirement-7991.html<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> California Newsreel, Unnatural Causes: In Sickness and Wealth,<\/em> PBS, https:\/\/www-tc.pbs.org\/unnaturalcauses\/assets\/resources\/in_sickness_and_wealth_transcript.pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Douglas A. McIntyre, \u201cLife Expectancy Varies Greatly by Neighborhood, a NYU Study Says,\u201d USA Today, June 26, 2019.\u00a0 Lhttps:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/2019\/06\/26\/study-life-expectancy-varies-by-neighborhood-and-the-gap-is-huge\/39623241\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> California Newsreel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201c\u2019Absolute futility,\u2019 says the Teacher. \u2018Absolute futility. Everything is futile.\u2019\u00a0 What does a person gain for all his efforts that he labors at under the sun?\u201d[1] I write this post feeling melancholic while in Washington DC, hence the Bible verse. I am sitting in a hotel room six hours away from my mother-in-law.\u00a0 She is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":200,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3205,2967],"class_list":["post-38691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-gratton","tag-dlgp03","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/200"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38691"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38775,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38691\/revisions\/38775"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}