As life expectancy rises, the UK workforce is shifting. In this panel discussion, we bring together leading experts from the Big Window, 55/Redefined, International Longevity Centre UK and Canada Life UK to unpack the longevity megatrend – what longer lives mean for the UK’s workforce, economy and society – and how employers can turn this shift into an opportunity.
Keily is Canada Life's Head of Marketing, Brand, and Comms. Keily leads on the Life100+ initiative which focusses on the longevity megatrend and the implications for financial services, businesses and UK consumers as we all negotiate the impact of living longer.
Rebecca is Canada Life UK’s Head of Public Policy, building the company’s strength and voice as an advocate for our customers and industry. Rebecca leads Canada Life’s engagement with government, political, and industry stakeholders, shaping the debate and influencing policy developments on a broad range of issues.
David is Chief Executive of the International Longevity Centre UK (ILC) with 20 years’ experience in ageing and demographic policy and research. Previously Head of Policy at Help the Aged, he has also worked in Parliament, and is an International Adviser to the Sau Po Centre on Ageing at Hong Kong University.
Lyndsey is founder and CEO of 55/Redefined, helping leading global organisations futureproof their businesses with age-inclusive workplace strategies. She has been recognised as one of the UK’s Top 35 Businesswomen and 50 Most Inspirational Female Entrepreneurs.
Lisa is Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Big Window Consulting, home to consumer insight agency the Big Window and longevity consultancy Fullspan, helping organisations worldwide respond to changing demographics.
A multi award-winning speaker on longevity, she has published widely on demographic change, age-related shifts, and the growing influence of older consumers.
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Read Building longevity-ready workplaces in the UK to learn more how longevity megatrend is reshaping the workspace.
Discover the trends00:09 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Hello and welcome to Canada Life's panel discussion exploring the longevity megatrend and what it means for society and employers in the UK.
00:13 — Rebecca Gladstone:
My name is Rebecca Gladstone, the Head of Public Policy and PR at Canada Life.
00:23 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Over the last two years we have been looking into the topic of longevity through our Life 100 research programme and the opportunities and challenges that will come as we all live longer lives.
00:34 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Our latest report deep dives into the implications of increasing longevity for the world of work, and I am joined by a fantastic group of longevity experts from some of the UK's leading organisations to explore this topic in more detail.
00:49 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Lyndsey Simpson is the CEO and founder of 55/Redefined, a global leader in enterprise age intelligence and technology solutions.
00:59 — Rebecca Gladstone:
She works with some of the world's largest organisations to help them attract, engage and grow over‑50s talent and consumers.
01:07 — Rebecca Gladstone:
David Sinclair is the CEO of the International Longevity Centre UK, the UK’s leading authority on the impact of longevity on society.
01:17 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Lisa Edgar is an award‑winning speaker on longevity and the CEO of The Big Window, a leading research consultancy and Canada Life's Life 100 research partner.
01:27 — Rebecca Gladstone:
And Keily Vanstone, Head of Marketing, Brand and Comms and the leader of the Life 100 initiative at Canada Life UK, who will be talking through how our work is supporting employers’ understanding of longevity in the workplace.
01:42 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Welcome everybody.
01:44 — Rebecca Gladstone:
So Lisa, if I can start with you please — what exactly is the longevity megatrend and why does it matter?
01:50 — Lisa Edgar:
Hi Rebecca. Hi everyone.
01:52 — Lisa Edgar:
We think about the longevity megatrend as being double‑edged, incorporating two forces — on the one hand falling birth rates, and on the other hand, living longer lives.
02:06 — Lisa Edgar:
If I start with falling birth rates first, we can see this trend across the world.
02:13 — Lisa Edgar:
It’s also true — and I have to confess this — that there are now more pets per household than children per household.
02:25 — Lisa Edgar:
And I have to confess that myself with my own dog, Winnie.
02:30 — Lisa Edgar:
On the other hand, we're also living longer as well.
02:35 — Lisa Edgar:
There’s a significant chance of someone born today living to 100.
02:43 — Lisa Edgar:
In many countries, people being born today have a one‑in‑two chance of living to 100.
02:54 — Lisa Edgar:
And David, you'll be really aware of these numbers too.
03:00 — Lisa Edgar:
Those living to 80 and beyond will reach 6.6 million in the next 10 to 20 years — about a third of Australia’s current population.
03:23 — Lisa Edgar:
These are incredible numbers.
03:25 — Lisa Edgar:
And also, in that time, the number of people over 100 would fill Lord’s Cricket Ground.
03:33 — Lisa Edgar:
These are very big numbers, and longevity is here to stay — even after COVID.
03:43 — Lisa Edgar:
Not least because there’s an incredible amount of global investment going into curing ageing.
03:51 — Lisa Edgar:
So we expect these numbers to stay with us.
03:58 — Lisa Edgar:
So then the question is — why does it matter?
04:03 — Lisa Edgar:
It matters because we are simply not equipped at the moment to work with longer lives.
04:11 — Lisa Edgar:
The shape of our lives needs to change. Everything is too structured and too rigid.
04:19 — Lisa Edgar:
I’m sure at some point during our conversation, we’ll come back to that structure.
04:25 — Lisa Edgar:
But unless we deal with it — unless we change the way we think about ageing — then we only see longevity as a challenge instead of an opportunity.
04:43 — Lisa Edgar:
Unless we change it, we can’t realise the longevity dividend or the contribution older people can give to society.
04:56 — Lisa Edgar:
At the moment we know it's true, but we don’t fully recognise it.
05:00 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Yeah.
05:00 — Lisa Edgar:
So it’s happening — and it matters.
05:03 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Yeah. Thank you.
05:04 — Rebecca Gladstone:
And David, the ILC is a global organisation. In terms of what you're seeing in the UK and around the world, how is this manifesting?
05:14 — David Sinclair:
We’ve actually been ageing for about 300 years. It’s not a new thing. In many ways, we’ve been ageing painfully slowly — not quickly — across most places. Whether you're in France, Germany, Japan or the US, ageing has been a long-term trend.
05:19 — David Sinclair:
But the common challenge across countries is that we’re ageing poorly, and we’re not adapting to long lives.
05:24 — David Sinclair:
For example, we’re working a lower proportion of our lives than we used to.
05:31 — David Sinclair:
In the UK, every generation coming through is in poorer health than previous generations.
05:35 — David Sinclair:
We’re also failing to adapt our towns and cities to support older populations — or indeed, to support younger people in ageing societies.
05:45 — David Sinclair:
One thing I’d say is that I don’t think we’re “ageing” anymore. We’re old. We are now an older society.
05:53 — David Sinclair:
The interesting thing is that we are not really “living longer lives”; we’re living long lives. Life expectancy probably won’t grow much more.
06:35 — David Sinclair:
The real challenge now is the gap between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy — and how to narrow it.
06:42 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Why is Canada Life so interested in this topic, Keily?
06:46 — Keily Vanstone:
Canada Life is a financial services organisation focused on supporting people in the workplace and into retirement. We were looking at macro trends, and longevity kept coming up as a major one that affects how we support people.
06:49 — Keily Vanstone:
We support 3.3 million people in the UK — a huge responsibility.
07:12 — Keily Vanstone:
To solve for the future, we needed to understand longevity deeply and think about what we need to do as financial service providers.
07:31 — Keily Vanstone:
We’re also a relatively large employer, so as an employer we have a lot to think about as well.
07:40 — Keily Vanstone:
That’s why we’re focused on this.
07:43 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Fantastic. And Lyndsey, employers obviously have a key role to play. From your perspective, what should employers be thinking about, and how should they prepare?
07:57 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Most employers are aware of the longevity trend — falling birth rates, an ageing world — but it still shocks them when they realise the largest and fastest‑growing part of their workforce is over 50.
08:11 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Many are navigating five generations in the workforce — and some even six.
08:25 — Lyndsey Simpson:
In sectors like grocery retail, you have teenagers and people in their 90s working side by side.
08:40 — Lyndsey Simpson:
This is uncharted territory. No one has experience managing such multigenerational environments.
08:49 — Lyndsey Simpson:
We expect middle managers to know how to motivate someone 20 years younger than them and 30 years older than them — when they can’t even agree where to go for the team Christmas drinks.
09:06 — Lyndsey Simpson:
This has profound implications for boards.
09:11 — Lyndsey Simpson:
We are the global leader in workforce solutions for ageing workforces, and we approach it from three angles — the three Cs:
09:24 — Lyndsey Simpson:
How does ageing impact the colleague experience as people stay in work longer?
09:34 — Lyndsey Simpson:
How does it impact ageing customers who want different products, solutions, and marketing approaches?
09:47 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And how does it shape company mission, global strategy and future planning?
10:04 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Employers need to look at their data, their skills strategy, and their legal and policy strategy.
10:15 — Lyndsey Simpson:
The Life100+ work from Canada Life is essential reading for employers.
10:22 — Lyndsey Simpson:
It shows the gap between employer assumptions and reality. For example, employers often think people retire early due to ill health — but only 18% actually do, compared to the 55% employers believe.
10:44 — Lyndsey Simpson:
In our cohorts, employers will give us a group they think is one year from retirement — but less than 10% actually think about retiring. Most want to travel, change career, or work more flexibly.
11:05 — Lyndsey Simpson:
We need workplace “glide paths” that enable people to work into their 70s and beyond — even with health conditions.
11:07 — Lyndsey Simpson:
The structure around all of this needs to enable longer working lives. What’s clear from our research is that employers need help to take this journey. It’s not something they’re currently equipped for or thinking about deeply.
11:39 — Rebecca Gladstone:
And Keily, how is Canada Life working with employers on this challenge?
11:43 — Keily Vanstone:
A couple of things from what Lyndsey said. In our research with 3,200 consumers and 600 employers, we found that only one in eight has a longevity strategy.
11:49 — Keily Vanstone:
So even though employers recognise the issue, only a small number have actually acted.
11:53 — Keily Vanstone:
We then looked at what's happening inside workplaces and identified four key themes.
12:15 — Keily Vanstone:
First, motivations change with age. As people get older, motivations become more about purpose, giving back, and how workplaces can support that.
12:29 — Keily Vanstone:
Second, the structure of work itself needs to evolve — particularly in how multigenerational teams work.
12:35 — Keily Vanstone:
What does performance look like? What does reward look like across ages?
12:39 — Keily Vanstone:
This is especially interesting for Canada Life. People who start thinking about living longer place higher value on their protection benefits because they want to stay healthy and in work.
12:50 — Keily Vanstone:
Third, we need to consider how protection and reward benefits support longer working lives.
12:53 — Keily Vanstone:
Fourth, how do multigenerational teams collaborate — even down to simply agreeing on a Christmas party destination?
12:58 — Keily Vanstone:
So we’ve raised a lot of challenges, and it’s now about how the right people come together to solve them.
13:06 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Can I bring this to life with a couple of examples from what Keily mentioned?
13:10 — Lyndsey Simpson:
In terms of what people want as they age, that plays out globally. Across industries, we’re the largest gatherer of workforce ageing data.
13:23 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And what we see is that people want progression, not promotion. They want to grow and learn skills — not necessarily climb the hierarchy.
13:32 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Yet most performance and reward systems are built on upward mobility.
13:40 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Reward is also interesting. Older workers have different priorities — including healthcare, protection benefits, and how they show up to work.
13:47 — Lyndsey Simpson:
For instance, colleagues over 50 are 200% less likely to take a day off sick compared to colleagues under 30.
13:56 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Even when facing critical illness, their priority is often to stay in work.
14:06 — Lyndsey Simpson:
So reward becomes super important — but employers fear navigating it because age is a protected characteristic.
14:13 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Employers need guidance. If you can’t ask someone when they plan to retire, how do you navigate a meaningful conversation?
14:24 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Older employees may be planning to stay another 15 years — yet their employer misinterprets them as one year from retirement.
14:33 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Recognising different motivations at different ages is not discriminatory.
It’s about creating a value proposition that supports people at all life stages.
14:51 — Lisa Edgar:
I completely agree with that. All the data we’ve collected also shows that decision‑making improves with age.
14:56 — Lisa Edgar:
We make our best financial decisions in our 50s and 60s, because we’ve amassed “crystallised intelligence.”
15:08 — Lisa Edgar:
If we recognise this contribution, we can approach longevity and long lives much more positively.
15:40 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Completely agree with that — and it’s fantastic to hear as well.
15:44 — Rebecca Gladstone:
What’s also really interesting from our research is that employers are turning to the public sector and government to play a role here.
15:49 — Rebecca Gladstone:
They’re looking for a framework and direction on how they should approach longevity.
15:56 — Rebecca Gladstone:
So David, from your perspective, what are you seeing in terms of how the UK Government is approaching this?
16:09 — David Sinclair:
One of the reasons it’s great Canada Life is engaging in this is because so many organisations aren’t. Demography has even fallen off the World Economic Forum’s list of business risks.
16:19 — David Sinclair:
So there is a role for government to apply both carrots and sticks.
16:26 — David Sinclair:
There are big opportunities for government around issues like the state pension age.
16:42 — David Sinclair:
Government should be stronger about the purpose of retirement — and how we think about later life.
16:51 — David Sinclair:
Rather than spending years discussing how to implement reviews, they should be acting now.
17:00 — David Sinclair:
For example, employers face restrictions on investing in occupational health.
17:03 — David Sinclair:
A silly example: employers can pay for a flu vaccine because it’s under trivial benefit limits…
17:10 — David Sinclair:
…but they can’t pay for a COVID vaccine because it costs over £50.
17:16 — David Sinclair:
It’s absurd that we don’t allow employers to invest more in workforce health.
17:22 — David Sinclair:
Government needs to make this much easier.
17:27 — David Sinclair:
We have age discrimination laws in the workplace — but more could be done to support flexible retirement and flexible working.
17:46 — David Sinclair:
Not just stopping work one day and retiring the next.
17:51 — David Sinclair:
Government could also learn from the protection industry.
17:54 — David Sinclair:
If companies like Canada Life are good at getting people back into work after illness — mental health or physical conditions — what could government apply at a population level?
18:18 — David Sinclair:
How do we prevent people from ending up on long-term incapacity benefits unnecessarily?
18:21 — David Sinclair:
And how can we learn from how protection benefits support individuals?
18:26 — David Sinclair:
Better coverage and understanding of protection could be extraordinarily useful for public policy.
18:37 — Rebecca Gladstone:
So, moving away from the world of work for a moment — Lisa, what else are we seeing beyond how employers are approaching this?
18:49 — Lisa Edgar:
This is the exciting bit.
18:52 — Lisa Edgar:
We’re working with the Stanford Centre for Longevity and the newly established Lisbon Centre for Longevity, and others around the world.
19:06 — Lisa Edgar:
We’re looking at how the structure of life is changing — and how we can move away from rigid, linear models toward something more fluid and adaptive.
19:15 — Lisa Edgar:
And I’ve noted how many times we’ve already used the word “adapt” in this discussion!
19:23 — Lisa Edgar:
We’ve been too rooted in a yesteryear version of life — learning for 15 years, working for 40, retiring for 10–15.
19:40 — Lisa Edgar:
This old model no longer fits. With long lives, we could end up spending as much time in retirement as we do working — and that is unsustainable.
19:50 — Lisa Edgar:
It’s unsustainable for employers, who need the best talent in the workplace for longer.
20:04 — Lisa Edgar:
It’s unsustainable for governments, who face an unbalanced system where a shrinking workforce is supporting an older population.
20:10 — Lisa Edgar:
And it’s unsustainable for individuals, who must find a financial route to support decades of life after traditional retirement age.
20:19 — Lisa Edgar:
Health, wealth and “self” — these pillars must be supported throughout a long life.
20:31 — Lisa Edgar:
For individuals, this means changing the shape of life.
20:33 — Lisa Edgar:
Stanford has coined the term “The New Map of Life” — a flexible, adaptive model that feels more like an exploratory journey than a straight line.
21:23 — Lisa Edgar:
You progress through life like an Easter egg hunt — finding the next clue, unwrapping experiences, adapting, planning, sometimes retracing steps.
21:40 — Lisa Edgar:
This flexibility and adaptability must become a core life skill.
22:05 — Lisa Edgar:
And this shift has huge implications for products, services and support systems.
22:09 — Lisa Edgar:
Providers like Canada Life must help equip people with the mindset and tools to plan flexibly across a long life.
22:14 — Lisa Edgar:
We’ve seen through our data that once people start planning with a long‑life mindset, they become more optimistic and feel more in control.
22:22 — Lisa Edgar:
They score higher on all wellbeing measures — happiness, life satisfaction and general fulfilment.
22:36 — Lisa Edgar:
Becoming an adaptive planner can help “shallow out” that classic U‑shape dip in midlife satisfaction.
23:03 — Lisa Edgar:
So, we can restructure life to make it more fluid and far less rigid, using the knowledge and insight from providers like 55/Redefined, The Big Window and the ILC.
23:20 — Lisa Edgar:
And if we do that, we can truly unlock the “longevity dividend”.
23:27 — Lisa Edgar:
A couple of statistics bring this to life.
23:29 — Lisa Edgar:
John Maynard Keynes predicted the 15‑hour work week. People often wonder why it never happened.
23:33 — Lisa Edgar:
But in reality — it has happened.
23:36 — Lisa Edgar:
Across the life course, on average, we do work less than 15 hours a week.
23:39 — Lisa Edgar:
But we now squeeze all our work into the period between age 20 and age 50.
23:53 — Lisa Edgar:
We experience long stretches of life where we’re not in the workforce at all.
23:56 — Lisa Edgar:
And we’ve squeezed all career progression, family responsibilities, peak health and peak workload into the same compressed decades.
23:59 — Lisa Edgar:
This design has contributed to the mental health crisis in the workplace.
24:14 — Lisa Edgar:
The result? In the UK, we now only work around 31 years of our adult lives — on average.
24:23 — Lisa Edgar:
It’s economically unsustainable to work 30 years yet expect pensions and the state to support 50 more.
24:37 — Lisa Edgar:
That used to work when there were many young people and few older people. It doesn’t work anymore.
24:44 — Lisa Edgar:
We also used to have strong economic growth, which helped. But today’s demographics mean the maths no longer adds up.
24:48 — Lisa Edgar:
We must get used to the idea of working longer — not necessarily in the same way, but across a different shape of life.
24:55 — Lisa Edgar:
This doesn’t mean everyone works until 70 or 80.
24:58 — Lisa Edgar:
But it might mean people currently retiring at 50 extend work to 52.
25:03 — Lisa Edgar:
Or people working until 70 extend to 72.
25:07 — Lisa Edgar:
Small extensions, supported by flexible work and better design, could make a massive difference.
25:08 — Lisa Edgar:
It’s not just about working longer — it’s about the triple benefit of working even a little longer.
25:14 — Lisa Edgar:
One more year in work means one more year of:
25:18 — Lisa Edgar:
This “triple whammy” is powerful — and we need to communicate that better.
25:00 — David Sinclair:
If we can support people to just work a little longer — even a year — it has an enormous impact.
25:07 — David Sinclair:
Let’s say someone works one year longer:
25:14 — David Sinclair:
It’s a triple whammy.
Every additional month in work isn’t just a month’s pay — it’s a month’s extra pension contribution and a month less relying on pension income.
25:20 — David Sinclair:
Canada Life and others could play a big role in communicating this clearly to people.
25:27 — David Sinclair:
If we can help people extend work by even small increments, supported by flexible structures, that is incredibly powerful.
25:32 — Lyndsey Simpson:
I love the idea of “success at the margins.”
25:35 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And I’ve got some real‑time insight from the last two and a half years of consumer and employee trials.
25:41 — Lyndsey Simpson:
We’ve been running trials asking:
How do we educate people about their longer lives?
How do we help people engage with their finances and financial wellbeing earlier?
How do we extend working careers?
25:51 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And here’s what I can tell you with certainty:
It is not about offering more money.
25:55 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Money alone does not drive longer working lives.
26:00 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And if you simply tell someone “you need to invest in your pension,” they won’t do it.
26:04 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Why?
Because the question “How much money do I need for the next 50 years?”
is overwhelming.
26:12 — Lyndsey Simpson:
People don’t know if they’ll be in work, healthy, married, single — there are too many unknowns.
26:19 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Instead, what people need is support in midlife — in work and outside work.
26:30 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And here’s a powerful stat:
93% of over‑50s feel unsupported by their employer in midlife.
26:42 — Lyndsey Simpson:
They are the “missed middle” — left to drift, without structured support.
26:50 — Lyndsey Simpson:
But we know there are effective mechanisms to add years to people’s working horizons.
26:55 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And once you extend someone’s career horizon, they become far more engaged in their financial health.
27:01 — Lyndsey Simpson:
This is where education comes in.
27:04 — Lyndsey Simpson:
One of the biggest misunderstandings we encounter is in large employers who think they offer brilliant flexible working…
27:07 — Lyndsey Simpson:
…but their older cohorts still retire early.
27:12 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Often, the real reason is surprisingly simple:
They are in a legacy defined benefit pension scheme,
and no one has told them that going part‑time will NOT reduce their pension.
27:19 — Lyndsey Simpson:
So they retire — and then go work part‑time somewhere else — because they didn’t know they could have simply switched to part‑time within their current employer.
27:28 — Lyndsey Simpson:
There are huge quick wins available, simply through better education.
27:50 — Lyndsey Simpson:
So you get these situations where people retire early because they don’t realise they could have shifted into part‑time or flexible work without damaging their pension.
27:55 — Lyndsey Simpson:
So again — there are big, quick wins for employers, simply through clearer communication and education.
27:57 — Lyndsey Simpson:
But as Lisa said earlier — the starting point is planning. People need structured, supportive planning in midlife.
28:01 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And we all need to recognise that no generation has faced what today’s 40‑, 50‑ or 60‑year‑olds are facing.
28:04 — Lyndsey Simpson:
They are pioneers.
They cannot look to their parents for a roadmap — their parents’ life expectancy and career arc were completely different.
28:12 — Lyndsey Simpson:
It’s up to employers and providers to give people the navigational tools they need for this new world.
28:17 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And that’s why education and structured support are so important.
28:19 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Because without it, we leave people to guess their way through the biggest decision points of their lives.
28:23 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And that’s where people either disengage or make suboptimal decisions.
28:27 — Lyndsey Simpson:
It’s such a connecting topic — because everyone is ageing and everyone can relate to it on a human level.
28:29 — Lyndsey Simpson:
When we think about engagement and education, longevity is an incredibly powerful hook.
28:33 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Everyone is a day older today than yesterday — so everyone sees themselves in the issue.
28:40 — Lyndsey Simpson:
We’ve done work on the “curve of life” — the U‑shape of life satisfaction.
28:43 — Lyndsey Simpson:
If you’re living longer, people worry:
“Does that mean I’m stuck in the dip for longer?”
28:47 — Lyndsey Simpson:
But the answer is — you can get out earlier through planning, control, and adaptive decision‑making.
28:50 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And financial services plays a huge role here — through advice, family conversations, goal‑setting and support.
28:57 — Lyndsey Simpson:
If we can help people connect emotionally to the idea of living to 100 — and then provide the tools to plan — we unlock massive value.
29:03 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Tools, support, education — these are the foundations of long‑life planning.
29:12 — Lyndsey Simpson:
And on top of that, innovation in solutions — that’s where we can get really exciting about the future.
29:19 — Lyndsey Simpson:
People don’t want the cliff‑edge decision of “I’m working, now I’m retired.”
29:23 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Retirement as a concept no longer fits the reality of long lives.
29:28 — Lyndsey Simpson:
I often say I’m on a mission to retire the word retirement.
29:30 — Lyndsey Simpson:
It should be a purpose‑led next chapter, not an end state.
29:36 — Lyndsey Simpson:
But right now, people don’t know how to navigate flexible transitions — taking six months off, drawing down income, going back to work, stopping again.
29:43 — Lyndsey Simpson:
These options are complex — and the products that support this flexibility often don’t exist yet.
29:47 — Lyndsey Simpson:
This is exactly where government can help — particularly with flexible pensions and preventative health.
29:50 — Lyndsey Simpson:
But it’s also where providers and employers must come together.
29:53 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Fantastic.
29:56 — Rebecca Gladstone:
And a really important point — that collaboration across sectors is key.
31:01 — Rebecca Gladstone:
So, coming to the end of our discussion, I would love to ask each of you what the one key takeaway is that you want people to leave with today.
31:01 — Rebecca Gladstone:
So finally, a note to end on. I’d love to go to each of you in turn to ask: What is the one thing you’d like people to take away from today’s conversation?
I’ll come to you first, Lyndsey.
31:58 — Lyndsey Simpson:
Thank you.
For me — whether you’re an individual or representing an organisation — if you don’t have an age strategy, you don’t have a growth strategy.
And when I say an age strategy, I mean considering all four key pillars from the Life 100 report: Motivation, Structure of Work, Protection/Reinforcement, and Multigenerational Teams.
Employers must think about how to help people of all ages thrive.
32:29 — Lisa Edgar:
Mine would be: engage and innovate.
Companies like Canada Life, 55/Redefined, The Big Window, and the ILC are contributing insight because we’re passionate about making a difference.
I would encourage everyone to get involved, understand the issues, and move things forward.
Longevity is an opportunity — not a threat.
32:51 — David Sinclair:
For me, long lives offer a huge opportunity.
If we keep people healthy, they will work longer, volunteer more, provide more care, and spend more money.
There is a significant economic opportunity here — for individuals, businesses, and society.
33:07 — Keily Vanstone:
What we’re hearing from financial services providers globally is a shared question:
How do we help people think differently about the shape of their lives?
Life isn’t a single linear journey — it’s a composition of different stages that evolve, overlap and repeat.
My message is: let’s help people pull the small levers that shift how they think about their future — and support more flexible, fulfilling life paths.
33:52 — Rebecca Gladstone:
And what a brilliant note to end on.
33:55 — Rebecca Gladstone:
Thank you to all of our panellists for that fascinating conversation on what longevity means for all of us.
34:06 — END
