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Economics

Age, health and wealth

Nature volume 448, pages 875–876 (2007)Cite this article

Ageing populations raise the spectre of crippling healthcare costs. Extra spending on medical research might bring healthier, happier older people who work (and pay taxes) for longer. Is that a good investment?

Hallmark Cards now sells about 85,000 100th-birthday cards a year, in three different designs. Reaching the century is all very well — as long as it does not mean spending a quarter of a century incapacitated or in a nursing home. So one of the most pressing issues about the rise in life expectancy at older ages is whether more years of life mean more years of disability or more years of good health.

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  1. Frances Cairncross is at Exeter College, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3DP, UK. frances.cairncross@exeter.oxford.ac.uk,

    Frances Cairncross

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  1. Frances Cairncross
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Cairncross, F. Age, health and wealth. Nature 448, 875–876 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/448875a

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