Politics of the Life-Span: A critique of the demography of the life span and its impact on social policy. J ohn A. Vinc

1. Politics of the Life-Span: A critique of the demography of the life span and its impact on social policy.John A. VincentUniversity of Exeter. U.K.

2. Projections • Projections of future demographic trends in terms of ageing populations are crucial in the process of forming public policies, insitutional and commercial strategies. • there are those who believe that immortality is within reach (Futurists); • those who believe life expectancy will rise to 100 years or more in this century (Optimists); and • those who believe that life expectancy is unlikely to exceed an average of around 85 years in the absence of radical advances in the control of the aging process (Realists)” (Carnes and Olshansky 2007:367) • Elsewhere I have written on the problems associated with the immortalist / futurist position. Here I present a radical deconstruction of a highly influential ‘optimist’ position.

3. Oeppen, Jim and James W.Vaupel (2002) “Broken Limits to Life Expectancy” Scıence 296 (10) May 2002, pp.1029-32. www.sciencemag.org • Oeppen and Vaupel (2002) state that there is a very high linear correlation in the historical trend for female life expectancy in the record-holding country; • This trend has risen at a steady pace of 3 months per year over the last 160 years. Japanese females life expectancy currently 85 it will only take another 45 years to take it (or some other record breaking country) to 100. • They argue that all previous attempts to specify maximum life expectancy have failed and conclude there are no limits to life expectancy.

4. Oeppenand Vaupel (2002) • “People are set to live increasingly long lives, and reaching 100 will soon be "commonplace", say experts …"As the cost of pensions spirals there's mounting pressure... to raise the age for retirement” …"The acute problem for society will be how to look after all the older people” (Heap, BBC Thursday, 9 May, 2002 ); • “Health crisis looms as life expectancy soars …Average ageing forecasts far too low, say scientists” (Meek, Guardian May 10, 2002). • The original paper was written as an attack on persisteantly over-conservative assumptions about future life expectancy. • However, their polemical project became hardened into taken for granted alarmist ‘facts’ about future population ageing.

6. Critique of Oeppen and Vaupel.Extrapolation. • Mathematic projection without a clear theoretical base mistakes correlation for cause. • The paper contains no developed theory as to why life expectancy will continue to grow without limitation. • Insofar as this point is theorised at all, they refer to continuously occurring gains in medical knowledge. • They say they do not believe people will become immortal but without any theoretical underpinning they are unable to comment on when and how their prediction will cease to be valid. • We could use the same correlation and show, on the basis of Oeppen and Vaupel’s analysis, that life expectancy was zero in 1660. • The logic of the extrapolation used by Oeppen and Vaupel could also be used to apply to Olympic running speeds. This conclusion would be equally wrong.

7. Critique of Oeppen and Vaupel. Biological limits • The Biology of ageing has been undergoing rapid change in the last decade with new findings and new theories. • The significance of these findings for the potentiality of devising methods to control, slow or reverse the fundemental ageing process is controversial. • However, their is a clear consensus within the bio-gerontological community that the are no current techniques capable of extending the maximal human life span. • “Today, aging and death are viewed as the inadvertent but inevitable byproducts of the degradation of biological structures and processes that evolved for growth, development, and reproduction rather than for extended operation. These structural and functional constraints exist at every level of biological organization (cells, tissues, organs, and organ systems) within the individual, and their existence imposes practical limits on the life span of individuals and the life expectancy of populations.” Carnes and Olshanski 2002 p.510

8. Critique of Oeppen and Vaupel. choosing extremes • The use of the most extreme longevity at any particular date and projecting that forward almost inevitably slides from being thought of as a projection of an extreme to a prediction about future life expectancy in general. • World population as a whole is immune to the trends revealed in each of Oeppen and Vaupel’s specific cases. Namely an ‘s’ shaped curve in which secular decline follows an acceleration in life expectancy gains. • It is critical that we do not lose sight, as so many commentators have, that the projections refer to a succession of extremes, they do not represent the trajectory of any measure of central tendency (an average life expectancy) or the any single population. • The projection may prove valid but tell us nothing at all about average life expectancy in any particular population in the future. • The most important factor in 20th century gains in life expectancy has been the decline in infant mortality. • It is at least a possibility that further advances in longevity at the oldest ages, even though advancing at the moment, will be particularly hard to achieve in the future. This is shown by the trends to declining gains in longevity in Japan.

9. Source: Statistics and Information Department, Minister's Secretariat, Ministry of Health and Welfare, Vital Statistics of Japan.

10. Critique of Oeppen and Vaupel. segmentation of populations. • It is also to be expected that highly selective groups will continue in the future to show rapid gains in extreme longevity. • The concentration within demography on the Japanese island of Okinawa is a further example of how demographic extremes have become used to fuel debates about population ageing in general. • If Oeppen and Vaupel were to control for not only gender and country, but for social class, their correlation might be extended. • Those deep frozen corpses in the care of the Cryonics corporation awaiting the breakthroughs in Biology to be able to resuscitate them tend to be very wealthy U.S. males.

11. Data sources – reliability and definitions. • Can bureaucratic and institutional procedures in different countries over a 160 year period consistently and reliably record the same vital statistics. Age at death, numbers of live births are two features which are open to cultural and historical variation in interpretation and accuracy in official records. • Life tables used for calculating life expectancy make assumptions about the span of the oldest age category. • Age specific mortality rates in the first year of life are critical to calculating the standard measure of life expectancy at birth. However, in historical and cultural terms what is recorded as a birth (as opposed to other categories such as still birth, miscarriage, or not recorded at all) is very varied. Compared to contemporary practice there is likely to have been an under-recording of infant mortality rates in the past. • Further in many cultures, including Japan, there has been a greater tendency to disfavour female births and less likelihood to record them and strive strenuously to keep them alive.

12. The cohort problem. • Current increases in life expectancy are viewed by some as a cohort phenomenon not necessarily a trend attributable to future ageing populations. • Finch and Crimmins (2004), working from the immunological theory of ageing argue on the basis of historical data from Sweden that the ability of people in the twentieth century to provide children with a relatively infection free environment, as well as issues about childhood nutrition, are an important factor in changes in later life mortality experienced as the century progressed. • However, influence of this factor would not be replicated by further gains in life expectancy for subsequent cohorts. A finding which is consistent with the predominant ‘s’ shaped pattern of gains in life expectancy. • Other researchers have questioned the long term significance in the rise in childhood obesity, particularly linking it through epigenetic processes to increased late life diabetes and increased risk of mortality.

13. Demographic projections and policy makers. • The concepts and methods of forecasting future numbers of older people are constructed through social processes including the activities of professional bodies and academic disciplines. • For the actuaries their projections have very specific financial consequences. This tends to mean that although they compete with each other over identifying trends and market opportunities in particular segments of the population, they tend to come together in formulating views about the future national trends. • One of the key debates in the consultation on revisions to U.K. life tables in 2004 were about the relative merits of using extrapolation techniques as opposed to ‘decomposition’ techniques. The latter involve examining changes in to the probability of specific causes of death and aggregating them into an age specific final figure. • Such demographic concepts “dependency ratio” and “life expectancy” contain embedded within them the issues, perceptions, cultural understanding of the social groups who develop and use them. The terminology employed in these debates has ideological as well as technical functions • It is only possible to fully understand these ‘scientific’ debates about predictions of future longevity if they are located in a context of political economy. How these experts and their expertise fit into global society.

14. Should age categories be thought of as fixed? • “To refuse to criticise the notion of an ageing population, to accept this kind of calculation and the fixedness of age categories, is simply an admission that the threshold for old age has not evolved for more than 200 years and will not change for the next fifty, that the starting point of 60 years is immutable. It implies that the significance of age does not evolve historically, that it does not constitute an historical variable. The different ages in life – childhood, adolescence and old age – have inspired many works, but the thresholds defining them appear to have escaped historical development.” (Bourdelais 1998:110-111)

15. Ideological framework for demographic concerns. • We can ask critical questions about which population changes become social issues - who is defining those problems and to what purpose?’ • There were concerns in the first part of the 20th century about declines in fertility, loss of population in war and the possibility of falling populations. • In the thirty years following the second world war the major concerns were population growth. Population time-bombs, it was argued, were waiting to blow up economic progress and environmental stability. • In the last twenty years the time bomb has again become that of an ageing population. Fears about population have shifted from over-population to under-population - too many babies to too many old folk. • Historically different elites have identified particular demographic changes as a threat, and their ideologies can identify not only the cause but also the moral responsibility for these threats. These ideologies, having defined the problem, imply courses of action. Powerful elites select tools to exert control to tackle the perceived crises.. In the 20C there have been strong links between demography, eugenics and social engineering.

16. Political economy of population • This changing demographic agenda is best understood as reflecting ideological concerns of dominant elites: economic, military, political and financial. • National and global economic elites want labour for their enterprises and customers for their products. In general terms, if demographic expansion promotes economic expansion all well and good, but if rapid growth leads to instability, then concerns emerge. • Military elites are concerned about military manpower for themselves and their enemies, (c.f. CIA 2001). • Political elites need to sustain state control and thus observe, enumerate and manipulate populations. • The elites who control the multinational firms in the global finance industry have a specific set of interests in the success and expansion in the management of the resources generated by “funded” pension schemes.

17. The agenda of the global finance industry • The OECD (1998) Policy Brief states that population ageing could threaten future economic growth and prosperity and suggests that yet greater “reform”. They identify the following questions as crucial: • “Will it continue to be possible to share societies’ resources between the working generation and its dependent non-working members in ways that do not give rise to unacceptable societal and inter-generational conflicts? • How can the contribution of older people to society and economic prosperity be enhanced? • How should pension, health and long-term care best be reformed? • Which changes in the financial infrastructure are needed to support the development of funded pension systems? • To what extent will ageing OECD countries be able to improve their well-being through growing trade in goods and services and assets, in particular with younger, faster-growing non-OECD countries?” (OECD 1998:1) • But these questions, from the point of view of the dominant agenda, are rhetorical. The ideology of pension fund capitalism dictates that the answers are obviously that older people should expect less, everyone will have to contribute more towards pensions, people will have to work longer for their pensions, the private sector should be left to manage the funds, and we better rely on the US to make sure the younger states do not step out of line. • This and similar approaches tend to leave out of the equation issues of economic growth and economic redistribution which have been critical to the successful establishment of pension systems in the 20C.

18. Conclusion • It is therefore not surprising that Oeppen and Vaupel’s paper met with such a ready audience from powerful social groups in the global economy and by re-iteration became reified into the facts of population ageing. • What the paper was able to do was legitimate the interests of those who wished to create market opportunities by dismantling state based PAYG pension scheme by attaching the apparent credibility of numerical demographic science to an explosive statistic. • What we should not allow is the political and economic debates about priorities for pension systems and economic support for elderly people to be sidelined by apparently technical arguments about population dynamics. Any demographic theory like any scientific theory is only a good as the assumptions and methods on which it is based.

19. This presentation, and various papers can be viewed at:http://www.people.exeter.ac.uk/JVincent/