Three Score Years and Twenty
Analysis
BBC
4.6 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2013
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As more and more people look forward to ever longer life, Analysis examines what it's like to grow old in Britain and what we can learn from other countries facing the same challenge. We've heard much about the financial issues around pensions or health care. But it also poses more fundamental questions - is Britain a good society in which to grow old?
Will those precious extra years be a time of wellbeing or alienation and loneliness? And, do other parts of the world have strengths from which we could learn?
Chris Bowlby talks to those who have a unique perspective on this - migrants who came to the UK in the hope of better prospects. They can compare British society with other places they know as well. Many are now weighing up what to do when their working lives are over. And a number do not expect to stay here. Their children work long hours and live a distance away. The three-generation homes that supported their own grandparents as they grew old will not be an option for them. Many worry that they face a lonely future.
So is Britain a model for the future of a longer life? Or do those with a global perspective believe there are better places to spend your later years?
Contributors : Professor Sarah Harper (Oxford Institute of Population Ageing), Baroness Sally Greengross (International Longevity Centre) & Dr Chris Murray (Global Burden of Disease Study).
Producer : Rosamund Jones.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
| 0:04.7 | My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds. |
| 0:08.5 | As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices. |
| 0:18.0 | What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars, |
| 0:24.6 | poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples. |
| 0:29.7 | If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC |
| 0:35.4 | Sounds. |
| 0:36.4 | Thank you for downloading this edition of Analysis from the BBC. |
| 0:40.5 | As more and more of us reach three score years and 20, perhaps even 30, Chris Bulby explores how |
| 0:46.8 | society will have to change. |
| 0:50.2 | When it comes to good news stories, this ought to be the biggest there is. |
| 0:54.3 | Death is steadily losing its dominion. |
| 0:57.1 | We are pushing death back further and further into older age. |
| 1:01.7 | In 1850, half the population in England were dead before they reached 46. |
| 1:07.0 | Now, half the population in England are alive at 85, and of 8 million people currently alive in the UK will make it to |
| 1:16.7 | 100 years or more and if we extrapolate that to Europe we can say 127 million Europeans are going to live to 100. |
| 1:25.6 | We have reached a turning point five years ago when the number of children stopped growing in the world. |
| 1:32.2 | We have 2 billion children children they will not increase. |
| 1:34.8 | The increase of the world population from now on will be a fill-up of adults. |
| 1:39.6 | This will change the whole shape of our society in ways we've barely begun to imagine. |
| 1:45.2 | Politicians like the Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt concentrate on questions that traditionally come |
| 1:50.8 | under an unglamorous heading, retirement and old age, struggling for |
... |
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