Imagine a World Without Old People

October 2024

By Richard Fleming

Photo courtesy of Kimson Doan

We old folks sometimes feel invisible. A while back, I was walking along a beach in Maui, surrounded by beautiful young people frolicking in swimsuits, and I barely merited a glance. No eye contact. No acknowledgment of being alive and upright. Several few months ago I had to go to the grocery on a Friday night to pick up some food for the weekend. Most customers were young or middle-aged, since the oldsters had retreated to their homes hours earlier. As I moseyed down the aisles, I felt like a ghost. Not a glance, not a smile.

While such experiences are not unusual, they don’t happen everywhere. When my wife and I go to the Benicia Senior Center to pick up food for our Meals on Wheels delivery route, the center’s staff person smiles and says hello.

But it is common for Boomers and the Silents to feel society either ignores us or sees us as a burden. This can be true in the public arena, in commerce, in culture, and definitely in the political realm. Some political leaders say older women have no reason to concern themselves with abortion rights. Some say the age of Social Security eligibility should increase, even though life expectancy is dropping. And some feel spending on Medicare is excessive.

The other day I started to wonder what the world would be like if there were no old people. If we are irrelevant and burdensome, what if we no longer existed? What if society consisted exclusively of people up through age 60: just the young and the middle-aged? Mind you, I’m not advocating for this to happen. I offer it simply as a thought experiment, to see whether society would be better off without us.

*    *    *

There may be advantages to a world without the elderly. The vast and expensive array of safety net programs for seniors would become unnecessary. Nursing homes – most could be eliminated. Social Security in the U.S. – scaled way back. Medicare – ditto. Society spends vast sums of money helping the elderly and these funds could be redirected to youth-oriented projects. Federal spending could be reduced. Budget deficits might disappear. People’s taxes could be cut.

With more take-home income, young and middle-aged folks would have more money for discretionary activities. Vacation travel and entertainment spending would likely grow. The expansion of these leisure industries could provide employment opportunities for the millions of workers no longer needed by hospitals, clinics, nursing homes, medical equipment supply firms, home care agencies, optical sales offices, hearing aid manufacturing and distribution, and local Social Security offices, since these businesses would lose many of their “customers” if seniors disappeared from society.

And there is more! People would spend less time waiting in lines at retail establishments, since there would be no old people fumbling with their credit cards at the payment terminals, not knowing where to tap, dropping their cards on the floor.

If no one needed to worry about living into old age, lifestyles could become more flexible. Living to 60 requires much less work and effort than living to 80. People could tune out health care professionals nagging them to eat more fruits and vegetables and avoid ultra-processed foods. Those carping voices encouraging regular exercise could be dismissed as background noise. People entering middle age would no longer need to worry about having enough money to live in retirement, since retirement would be an unknown concept.

Parents would no longer be tasked with telling their young children to stop staring at old guys with walkers trying to shuffle across the street before the light turns red. And if there is no one over age 60, fewer parents would have to serve as grandparents, a role which can be exhausting.

Movies could be more uplifting. People would not need to suffer through films like “On Golden Pond” or “The Father.” Families could sit on their couches and stream the original seasons of “Matlock,” avoiding the contrived new remake featuring Kathy Bates as a septuagenarian lawyer coming out of retirement (even though it is a cute story). With no oldsters around to consume television programs, broadcast TV could disappear since young people only watch streaming services.

And, perhaps most importantly, we would not need to worry about 78-year-olds running for president and whether their cognitive state is intact and appropriate.

*    *    *

While such a vision of society sounds attractive, I would be remiss if I did not also mention some of the down-sides of a world without old people.

Without seniors, society would lose many of its storytellers. Old folks are amazing repositories of tales about family and what life looked like in the good old days. These stories help inform younger people about history, their ancestors, and society’s past. Such tales can be both interesting and useful. And they can help the younger generation build a better society in the future, avoiding the mistakes of the past.

A world with fewer grandparents could be quite burdensome. Grandparents provide great assistance to families by babysitting, providing financial support, and by conveying small gems of wisdom to the young. If children had no grandparents, their sense of family, life, and community would be much more limited.

If society no longer needed to spend money on support systems for the elderly, this money might end up being spent entirely on the needs and wants of the young. This could have the unintended consequence of leading society to become more self-indulgent and prioritizing the here-and-now. If no one lived past 60, there may be less concern for the future and what it might bring, since our individual futures would be quite short.

Negative impacts in the cultural realm could also appear. In the absence of movies featuring endearing old people, there would be less crying in theaters, and tears can be therapeutic. Popular culture might slip into de-emphasizing empathy and understanding, emotions which charming old people are uniquely positioned to foster.

*    *    *

I’m sure I’ve left out much of the good and the bad that would be manifest in a world without old people. But hopefully I have captured some key facets of what life would be like. So what do you think? Does a world without seniors sound better, healthier, and less stressful? Or does it seem less wise, less grounded, and less empathetic?

This thought experiment would not be complete without also considering what a world without young people would look like, and this will be the topic of my next post.

If you enjoyed this post, please consider sending it to friends who may be interested or posting a link to your social media feed. Also, if you are not yet a subscriber, it is an easy way to be notified of future posts. Subscriptions are free and no advertising will come your way.