Social connection may seem like the weather. Everyone talks about it, but no one does anything about it.
But that’s not really the case in many of the healthiest countries on earth, where helping people connect, especially in the second half of life, is a central part of their public health strategies.
Take Japan for instance. It’s the longest-lived country in the world – median life expectancy for women is now an astonishing 90 years – so keeping older Japanese productive, engaged, purposeful – and healthy as a result – is a critical social priority. Many older Japanese adhere to the philosophy of ikigai, the happiness of always being busy, and in increasing numbers have come to associate work with good health. Because of this shared cultural belief, Japan has the highest rate of older workers in the world and the vast majority of them report that they work for noneconomic reasons: to find meaning in life, to support social engagement, to meet new people and to maintain and improve health. But they work in different ways. Japanese companies, once notorious for their rigid work and retirement systems, are now actively supporting a new multigenerational workplace by creating more part-time jobs, supporting job sharing opportunities, advocating for more flexible work conditions, and harnessing technology to help older workers.
Korea has a different approach to social connections in the second half of life. It has enshrined the right to lifelong learning in its Constitution and fostered a new concept that learning does not stop with childhood and schooling but that it is something undertaken across the life course as a feature of citizenry and social engagement. Learning is healthiest when it is collaborative and in person, and Korea has supported that idea by creating a new designation of “lifelong learning cities”, a designation that has been earned by 170 out of the 226 cities in the country. Want to engage in lifelong learning in the city of Osan? You can go to any of the 216 “stepping stone” classrooms scattered across the city and within a 10-minute walk of wherever you live.
Italy may be famous for its blue zone of Sardinia, but the real progress is being made in its urban centers. In the South Tyrol, for instance, support for active aging is the official policy of the province. Volunteering rates are extraordinarily high – roughly 1/3rd of all adults volunteer. Visit a senior center in Italy, and it is sometimes hard to tell who the volunteers are and who the participants are, because older Italians are the backbone of the volunteer workforce. It’s a critical service in an aging nation, but it also keeps older Italians among the healthiest and most socially connected in the world
It is sometimes difficult to imagine all this in the United States, a youth-obsessed nation that has too often associated older years with decline and diminishment. But long journeys start with small steps, which here means fostering a shared public understanding that the second half of life can be as valuable, engaged, and productive as the first, so long as we give people the right opportunities. Fortunately, we don’t have to invent this new strategy, as other countries that have hit the age tunnel before us have already begun to reinvent the second half of life.
