Reinventing “old age”
The mantra of “technology changes everything” is certainly true when it comes to aging. For starters, breakthroughs in medicine, nutrition, biotechnology, and other field are helping more people enjoy life for a longer period of time. By 2030, the average seventy-year-old will live like today’s average fifty-year-old. Against the conventional wisdom that virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology, to name a few fields, are being driven by the wants and needs of young people, most of the exciting breakthroughs and developments nowadays are, in fact, being driven by the needs of the population above sixty.
Give the future size of the senior population and its long life expectancy, half of all entrepreneurs may be in that age group by 2030.
The gray wallet
Thinking about 2030, one thing seems likely: as the population age around the world, stock prices relative to company profits will not be as high as they traditionally have been. However, if between now and then we witness a transformation in the way we think about aging, and if we take advantage of the opportunities embedded in it, the link between the stock market and aging may become a virtuous one.
Also, the aging of the population will stimulate the demand for advisory services, asset management, and annuities, among other products. The fintech industry needs to move beyond creating tech solutions for 18–35-year-olds, to focus on solutions to meet the needs of all as we age.
Another vexing issue that fintech can address is what to do when the spouse in charge of the family’s finances becomes incapacitated or dies. or consider another all-too-frequent situation: an older adult loses his job and isn’t financially prepared for early retirement.
We can use machine learning to detect unusual changes in financial behavior that may be attributable to abuse by a third party.
2030 by Mauro.F.Guillen:53 ~59
