Forum Brief: Pensioners

The government has been told not to ignore the "greying army" of fifty-plus rebels massing in Britain.

Those born between 1945 and 1965 are becoming more radical and look set to take over from young people as the major campaigning group in Britain over the next 20 years, according to research by Demos and Age Concern.

Forum Response: Age Concern

Gordon Brown, director general of Age Concern, said: "A new generation of 17 million older people are marching towards retirement with a clear set of demands.

"The boomers are unlikely to put up and shut up. If the political parties fail to listen to the boomers on priority issues like the provision of public services and retirement then they could be punished at the ballot box."

Forum Response: Pfizer

A spokesman for Pfizer told ePolitix.com: "With increased longevity and declining birth rates, the UK is getting older. Where life expectancy at birth in 1901 was 47 and 68 in 1950, by 1998 it was 78 , and in 2011 it will be 82.

"By 2025 the number of people aged 80 and over will be 3.5 million, whilst even now one in three UK inhabitants is over 50 years old - that's 19 million people. The number of over 50s in the UK increases by 50,000 every month. These millions, a group once ignored because they were "old", now form the cornerstone of our society.

"The fact we live longer and more active lives than ever before presents many societal challenges, especially in healthcare. Older people in the UK use three and a half times the amount of hospital care as those aged under 65, and they account for two- thirds of hospital patients."Pfizer is eager to contribute to the wider debate on how the UK can most effectively manage the demographic transition towards a society composed of healthy, happy and fulfilled older people. Our first priority is, of course, in the field of healthcare, and to help drive the necessary shift in attitudes amongst UK opinion-formers, Pfizer has begun to set up collaborative alliances with ageing advocacy groups, governmental agencies, healthcare professionals, academia and other stakeholders.

"The debate is already lively, and there is growing recognition that establishing healthcare policies and priorities that respond to changing public needs requires vision and courage. At Pfizer, we also want to make change happen on the ground and interact with communities across the UK to help enable people to live healthier and longer lives.

"One priority issue that has emerged from initial research is improving access to medical information for all UK residents. Respondents in a Pfizer survey on Healthy Ageing told us that the ability to access high quality information about treatments is one of the most important issues for patients. Pfizer's long-term commitment to healthy ageing is to make a positive contribution to a debate that will have important ramifications on life in the 21st century.

"By making Healthy Ageing a topic for discussion now, we hope to increase all of our chances of growing older, and enjoying better health and greater vitality than any previous generation."

Forum Response: Help the Aged

Mervyn Kohler, head of public affairs at Help the Aged, told ePolitix.com: "Whilst it is unwise to generalise about the older population, it is clear that the ageing of the baby boomers will add a new dimension.

"They will be the first generation of older people with wide experience of active consumerism, international travel, the 'affluent society' and information technology. They will redefine the stereotype of older people.

"Many will be unhappy about their pension projections - given their previous lifestyle. More active and healthy than their peers a generation ago, many will want to stay in work, though perhaps not at the pell-mell pace of their twenties and thirties.

"So perhaps the first signs of change will be in the labour market, and government and employers must work with the grain of these developments. Not only will the new sixty-somethings bring a record of political activism to older age, but they will also be very numerous."

Forum Response: Association of Retired and Persons Over 50

Don Steele, director of social policy at ARP/O50, told ePolitix.com: "For the past decade social prophets have been forecasting that the 'baby boomers' were gearing up for a revolution - but the reality may eventually be as flat as the 'demographic timebomb' which, in this country, has now been exposed as the myth it has always been. True, there will be those who heard Dr Timothy Leary say in '68 " Trust nobody over 30" who might now be saying " Trust nobody under 60" - but to portray a whole generation as some kind of homogeneous army, buckling on the armour for the forthcoming showdown may be a slight over-statement.

"Demos is quite right to conclude that the attitudes and self-image of the baby boomers differ considerably from those of previous generations but quite wrong to say that the new generation ' plan to grow older very differently from their parents'. On the contrary, the most recent generation of older people have always anticipated a 'comfortable' retirement with their own modest pension enhanced by the state pension, access to equitable health care and respect for the achievements that have contributed to the wealth and well-being across the wider society over time.

"The primary inter-generational difference is that baby boomers are the first generation with the media nous and political savvy to change things. The question is, ' Will they ever get their act together?'. Demos may well predict that governments will ignore the baby boomers at their peril - but there are two reasons why they may get away with it. First, 'Apathy still rules, OK?', and will be no less evident among those brought up on Carnaby Street and Doctor Pepper than any of their predecessors. Second, recent governments have sidelined senior's demands with impunity and suffered no serious repercussions at the ballot box, so why should they start trembling now?

"Baby boomers may have potential for revolution but they need more substance than a label, pinned on them by prophetic sociologists. Timothy Leary's are in short supply these days."