Making People's Seniority an Advantage: advice to companies and individuals from De Beauvoir

Speaking on the future, Salim Ismail, founder of Singularity University, highlighted the impact of greater longevity on society at all levels. “We’re adding three months to life per calendar year,” he said, adding: “In a decade or two, or three, there will be a class of people taking treatments who can live for a long time, and that affects employment planning, retirement planning … Society will never have seen that before.” In other words, many of us around the age of 50 will probably live to beyond 100, which will mean giving careful thought to planning for the second half, or perhaps even the remaining two-thirds, of our lives, particularly bearing in mind that retirement age is being pushed back steadily by our governments, delaying access to a state pension.?I guess this assumption is still valid after the current pandemic.

Seniority can be seen as a gift and as an opportunity. A leading contemporary philosopher and writer who dealt with this human phenomenon was Simone de Beauvoir (1908-86), the precursor of modern Feminism.

When Beauvoir published?The Coming of Age, his most celebrated work,?in 1970, at the age of 62, the average life expectancy in France was 65. Very few people had private pension plans, care homes were a rarity, and the elderly suffering from Alzheimer's or dementia were sometimes placed in psychiatric clinics alongside patients suffering from severe mental disorders.

Beauvoir initially seems to be addressing the issue of old age from a similar perspective to previous thinkers. Montaigne, for example, explained that growing older is a "privilege" and a "great favor". The 16th-century French philosopher, who wrote in his diaries how he was on the verge of death on one occasion, encouraged his readers by telling them: "Death is only a few bad moments at the end of life," adding: " If you don't know how to die, don'tworry; Nature will tell you what to do on the spot, fully and adequately. She will do this job perfectly for you; don't bother your head about it.”

Writing almost 1,500 years before, in ancient Rome, Seneca, who was Nero’s tutor until the emperor obliged him to commit suicide, argued that life offered meaning to us in all stages, especially old age, and that we retained the capacity to increase our understanding of the world around us, even if we might choose not to. As a Stoic, he believed in a certain detachment from material things and in strength of spirit: if you feel depressed or bored after retirement, just look around and be astonished by the varied and sublime nature of our world. According to Seneca, great comfort can be found in the contemplation of nature. Beyond contemplation, it is also necessary to continue acquiring knowledge and to give meaning to one's life: “If you fail to grasp life, it will elude you. If you do grasp it, it will elude you anyway. So you must follow it - and 'you must drink quickly as though from a rapid stream that will not always flow'.”?

?Cicero, who predated Seneca by a century, was also optimistic about old age, arguing that we compensate for the decline of our physical faculties with the experience and intelligence we acquire over the years. He uses the analogy of the captain of a ship, generally older than his crew, who is respected for his knowledge, despite no longer being able to shin up the mast like the cabin boy.

?While respecting the view that old age has much to offer, Beauvoir offers the until-then unique technique of examining old age through the prism of feminism.?Coming of Age?was written as a counterpart to?The Second Sex and has a similar structure. She explains that while old age is period of biological decline, this should not necessarily entail a feeling of oppression. Instead, it is the meaning society attributes to the final stages of life that makes it oppressive. As with women, the elderly in western societies are "the others." Beauvoir explains that in some civilizations elders are treated with an almost reverential respect and are regarded as interlocutors with the gods, the depositaries of the legacy of ancient generations. In East Asian countries such as China and Japan this respect is reflected in social activities, treatment and initiatives for their care.?

?But in capitalist societies – and this is where Beauvoir’s Marxist perspective also comes into play – where change is rapid, experience loses its value and those without an occupation that generates a return on capital quickly lose their social identity. She adds that retirement rarely provides opportunities to develop a personal identity. Instead, during retirement, we find ourselves "losing one's place in society, losing one's dignity and almost one's existence [sa réalité]". She concludes that our treatment of the aged "exposes the failure of our entire civilization"??

?Today, almost half a century after the publication of?Coming of Age, conditions for the elderly have improved markedly in developed countries. Average life expectancy in France and western Europe is now around 82, while estimates suggest that advances in medicine, technology and biology mean that with each calendar year we gain three more months of life.

?But while we in the developed world are living longer, thus delaying retirement age, I would identify three major issues relating to the senior members of society that have yet to be resolved.

?-Firstly, we need to reinvent the idea of retirement and redesign the system of financial assistance for the elderly?to provide a decent and enjoyable life. Our pension systems and calculation of retirement ages were designed when life expectancy was nearly 20 years shorter than today and experts agree they are unsustainable. As I have proposed in?Cosmopolitan Managers, one solution would be to create part-time, flexible jobs for the over-65s that draw on their particular skills, combined with training programs to adapt to new technology. This is an area where the private sector could play a role, rather than leaving such initiatives to governments.

One of the characteristics I most admire about businesses in China and Japan is the respect there for retired workers, who are sometimes appointed a vice president or head of department, as well as being provided with resources for their care.??

?-Another challenge for companies is integrating different generations?and developing synergies that combine their respective talent. Within a few years, extending the retirement age will mean there can be as many as five or more generations within the same company, posing either a threat or an opportunity for senior management. Again, the best way to meet this challenge is through in-company training and education. This would help older employees recover the loss of personal identity that Beauvoir identified, and with it greater respect.

More and more companies are now initiating reverse mentorship programs where younger employees advise their older colleagues in areas such as digital skills, technology management or social networks, as well as indicating new ways of learning and understanding the changing environment around them.?

-The third challenge is that of creating a culture of inclusion where the styles, ideas, fashions or perspective of seniors are regarded as part of the cultural mainstream. Specifically, this would mean seeing older people in advertisements, movies and television, novels and other areas of popular culture, rather than being associated solely with retirement or ill health. In any event, I believe changing demographics in developed countries will lead to this integration happening naturally and will not require extraordinary measures. In short, companies will necessarily have to adapt their products and services to the demands of an ageing population.?

?Thanks to the feminist movement, driven by philosophers such as Beauvoir, the inequalities between men and women, in society and at work, have to a large extent been mitigated, although much remains to be done. As with feminism, perhaps we’ll see a movement emerge in the coming years to fight for the full integration of the elderly, led by a new generation of senior writers such as Beauvoir, Cicero, Montaigne or Seneca.

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