Book Review Enters The New Normal Of Longevity Era

By Liu Meilin

"Longevity era" is becoming the new normal of future human society. By exploring the characteristics and evolution logic of population, we can find that population aging is the inevitable trend of human development. With the changes of population explosion, balance and recession, human social and economic organizations will also be adjusted, transformed and rebuilt. Therefore, how to stimulate the economic potential in the age of longevity has become a major issue of global concern.

As Chen Dongsheng, founder, chairman and CEO of Taikang Insurance Group, said in "longevity era", one of the main pain points of longevity era is that the longer life expectancy will put forward higher requirements for personal pension, health and wealth management. However, at present, there is no ideal way to solve this pressure. " In this book, Chen Dongsheng, based on his own experience in running Taikang Insurance and drawing lessons from foreign research results, studies the relationship between population problems, economic development and business model of enterprises, systematically updates the traditional population aging theory, and finally puts forward a set of "Taikang scheme" to solve the above pressure. In a sense, this book can also be regarded as the historical record and experience summary of Taikang Insurance Group's "big health industry".

Different from "aging society", the term "longevity era" highlights Chen Dongsheng's positive thinking as an entrepreneur and presents a new adaptive world outlook. Contrary to the concerns that come with aging, the keynote of "longevity era" advocates rational and objective acceptance of aging, and regards the increase of the proportion of the elderly population as the new normal of human social development. In Chen Dongsheng's view, today's mankind is facing three times of great changes. The first is the great change of globalization and world pattern; the second is the great change of civilization form and production and life style brought by the development goals of scientific and technological progress and carbon peak and carbon neutralization; the third is the great change of human beings as a species themselves brought by the age of longevity. Among them, the great changes in the age of longevity will become the biggest challenge facing human beings in the next 30 or 50 years, which needs to be highly concerned by the whole society.

From an individual perspective, the age of longevity has also brought about "changes in the scale of life". In the past 20 years old people were young people, 40 years old people were middle-aged people, and 60 years old people were old people. In the age of longevity, 30-year-old people are young people, 60-year-old people are middle-aged people, and 80-year-old people are old people. Therefore, the scale of measuring the length of human life will change fundamentally, the traditional life syllogism - study, work and retirement - will be rewritten, and the boundaries among the three will become blurred. The continuous increase of life expectancy also makes people have to face new employment, health and financial challenges, and the whole process of life needs to be re planned and arranged. Under this new normal, the economic, political and cultural structure of the whole society will be adjusted accordingly.

With the increase of the proportion of the elderly, a new economic form - longevity economy will gradually take shape. It is pointed out that the most acute contradiction in the age of longevity is that people need to solve the financing and service problems of longevity and health. Therefore, the economic form providing solutions will become the mainstream of longevity economy. At that time, the elderly will not only be the demanders (consumers), but also actively participate in the social production process and play the role of producers. The data age and technological progress will help to further tap the potential value of elderly human capital, and this process will also create the "third demographic dividend" dominated by the elderly. As mentioned in the book, "the advent of the age of longevity is giving the elderly a new social role, and will change the mode of production and organization since the industrial age, and stimulate more possibilities for longevity economy."

Further speaking, to meet the era of longevity, individuals, governments and enterprises need to make preparations to jointly meet the advent of change. For individuals and families, the accumulation of health and wealth, the accumulation of educational capital are more important. For enterprises, the core is to seize the consumer groups, according to the changes in their needs to develop strategies, layout industries, adjust products, and ultimately build an ecological product system to meet the diversified requirements of customers in the long-term era. As far as the government is concerned, the supply side policies of pension and medical care, the formulation of industrial policies to promote innovation for the pension industry, and the strengthening of infrastructure construction suitable for aging will become the driving points.

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