Retirement shortens life
The medical side of retirement
A well-deserved rest turned into a survivalAda Gorbacheva, Independent Newspaper
The question of the need to raise the retirement age in Russia is constantly being returned to. Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin again insisted on this by coincidence shortly before the World Day of the Elderly, which is celebrated on October 1.
In the USSR, the retirement age was set earlier than anywhere else – 55 years for women and 60 for men. In Europe and the USA it is 60-65 years. And due to the radical change in the ratio of age strata in developed countries, the retirement age is increasing: in France for men from 60 to 62 years, in Germany for all gradually from 65 to 69 years, in the UK – up to 68 years. However, in France, for example, the average life expectancy of men is 77 years, and in Russia – 61 years (until recently it was even less – 58.5 years). It turns out that with an increase in the retirement age, men will not live to retirement at all.
But the reality, as always, is more complicated. In Russia, more than 3 million people are over 80 years old, 350 thousand have reached 90 years or more, 6800 have crossed the 100-year mark. And at all: who is considered an elderly person and when does old age begin? Pushkin wrote about the vile old Gekkern – the adoptive father of Dantes. And he was 43 years old. If the "sun of Russian poetry" had not perished in a duel, in seven years he would also have been considered an old man. However, this did not interfere with anything. Kutuzov defeated Napoleon at the age of 67, Suvorov crossed the Alps at the age of 70, defeating Massena at Saint-Gotthard, Leo Tolstoy finished Resurrection at the age of 70.
According to the periodization of the World Health Organization, old age begins only after 60 years. Elderly, mind you, not senile. At the Second International Assembly on Aging, it was emphasized that traditional ideas about old age associated with diseases, addiction and insufficient productivity are now recognized as fundamentally wrong, in fact, most people are quite capable of adapting as they age and remain independent until very old age.
In developed countries, older people continue to work. In Russia, the more elderly people continue to work, if there is such an opportunity. Elderly people are forced to look for work not by caring about their longevity, but by banal need and expensive medical services. But what about a well-deserved rest?
Professor Pavel Vorobyev, head of the Department of Hematology and Geriatrics at the First Moscow Medical University, believes that retirement is a violation of behavioral stereotypes, and not all people can withstand such a load. "Retirement is a factor in shortening life,– Vorobyov is sure. – During the first year of retirement, half of people get sick – heart attack, stroke, cancer, and so on, which is significantly higher than among their peers who continue to work. The reason is simple: nobody needs a pensioner, he is breaking stereotypes. So the later you retire, the higher the life expectancy, and not vice versa. We, gerontologists, have been calling for 15 years to raise the retirement age for everyone to 65. Our neighbors have already raised – Kazakhs, for example. And nothing, no one complains. What kind of pensioner is an old lady at 55?"
As for life expectancy, here is the experience of Germany. In the GDR, mortality was significantly higher than in Germany. Over the past 10 years, life expectancy in East Germany has equaled that of West Germany. And in terms of the growth rate of centenarians, the former GDR is ahead of West Germany. This is the result of an effective health care and social security system.
Germany has implemented the proposals of the Second World Assembly on Aging to pursue a public policy focused on protecting the interests of the elderly, which includes providing good street lighting and a developed transport system; physical exercise programs for older people; provision of hearing aids, availability of rehabilitation programs, cataract surgery and hip replacement.
We treat the elderly as waste material. They try to refuse operations after the age of 70, not to take them to hospitals, in order to call an ambulance, they have to deceive about the age of the patient.
A year ago, responding to Dmitry Medvedev's remark about increasing life expectancy, Minister of Health and Social Development Tatyana Golikova said: "Unfortunately, the number of people who are abroad of retirement age is also growing. But, on the one hand, this is unfortunate, and on the other hand, it means that we must be very clear about how the infrastructure that provides these citizens will develop." One can imagine what the provision of these citizens will be if, unfortunately, there are too many of them.
Anyway, the retirement age is likely to be raised – of course, after the elections, because pensioners are the most active part of voters. But won't something happen that older people are afraid of, won't it turn out that they will give a pension later, and they will be fired from work now? In the West, this is not so easy to do, age discrimination will not be allowed by trade unions. In our country, trade unions are not visible in the frenzy of the freedoms of the entrepreneur.
In order not to form a rather large layer of completely unsecured hopeless unemployed in Russia, it seems that raising the retirement age should be accompanied by laws that do not allow the employer to dismiss employees two or three years before retirement, perhaps encouraging the employer with some preferences.
Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru27.09.2011