“When someone retires, they don’t stop producing”: study shows the monetary value of aging healthily
The growing aging of the population is a given, but demonstrating the potential economic gains associated with health in older ages constitutes a challenge. Now, within the scope of the work carried out through the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policiesa new method emerges that allows us to estimate the monetary value of aging healthily.
Following the objective of seeking to understand how it is possible to “better evaluate aging from an economic point of view”, the United Kingdom was used as a case study for an analysis of data resulting from research “on how people use their time”, in this case those over 65 years old, explains to Expresso the doctor and professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Porto (FMUP), João Vasco Santos, who signed the work published in the scientific journal Social Science & Medicine together with health economist Jonathan Cylus.
Assessing time spent on “informal tasks” – such as cooking, cleaning the house or take care of a family member – and assigning a “monetary value” to each one, the researchers compared “what is the difference between having very good health and very bad health”. “In the United Kingdom we are talking about a difference that represents around 20 to 30% of GDP per capita, which is a very considerable value and a new way of looking at the production of these older people”, says the also CINTESIS researcher.
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In other words, despite “not producing from a formal point of view”, they contribute through activities that “have value, so much so that some of these services are contracted”. “When someone retires, they don’t stop producing, they produce different things. They should not be considered as people who do not produce just because they are not in the job market”, summarizes João Vasco Santos.
The work concludes that “maintaining good health compared to having poor health leads to a huge difference in terms of economic value”, and that this increases with age, which “demonstrates the importance of healthy aging for the economy”. By quantifying the monetary value of health in the elderly, the researchers consider that the method presented – which can be adapted to other contexts – can serve as an argument for greater investment in the area of healthy aging.
“It’s always a better strategy stay healthy than get healthy again. It is easier to maintain health than to regain health”, points out João Vasco Santos, a public health specialist. In this field, there is still “a lot of investment to be made in prevention”, namely to maintain health throughout life.
Launched in 2022, Longevity is an Expresso project – with the support of Novartis – with the ambition of looking at public policies on longevity, discussing our individual and social behaviors with one objective: that we can all live better and longer. This project is supported by sponsors, with all content created, edited and produced by Expresso (see code of Conduct), without external interference.
