The "Silver Economy" Is Coming. Are You Prepared?

Author Zayna Khayat
Services and policies need to get up to speed rapidly to allow older adults to live with the vitality and dignity they seek.

Why It Matters

Seniors want to age with vitality, health, agency, and dignity. The new “longevity economy” tracks the aging marketplace and sees older consumers with a global spending power that will reach $15 trillion by 2020. Unlocking the massive opportunities will require a new set of problem-solvers, innovations, and capabilities, many of which have yet to be developed in Canadian industry, government, or civil society.

The Canadian population is aging rapidly. In the next decade, the proportion of our population aged 65 and older will exceed twenty percent. The number of adults over 85 will quadruple, and the number of centenarians will triple.

It’s clear that we’re all living longer and if many continue to retire around the age of 65, there can be decades of post-retirement living. It’s a new “fourth stage” of life that we have not designed for with regards to our institutions, services, products, policies, or models of healthcare.

Challenges to Aging Well in the 21st Century

In order for older adults to age well—which I believe means to age on their terms—a few fundamental, systemic challenges will need to be cracked:

Sustainability of our health systems

Patients aged 65 and older account for nearly half of Canada’s healthcare resources. We simply will not be

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