An ageing-policy expert argues that societies should stop treating longer lifespans purely as a healthcare and pensions burden, pointing out that healthcare accounts for only around 11% of what shapes health outcomes, with societal and behavioural factors driving roughly 60%, meaning the bigger economic lever sits outside hospitals entirely. This matters because the framing has direct financial weight: unpaid care work already represents close to 17.6% of local GDP, and formalising and raising the profile of this workforce could add nearly 5 percentage points to GDP, a scale few industries match. Businesses in healthcare, consumer products, urban planning and employers managing an ageing workforce may be affected, with the proposed shift, from "age-friendly" to "longevity-enabling" design, still at the conceptual stage pending any government or private-sector follow-through.

 

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