如果活到100岁成为稀松平常之事 为百岁人生绸缪

A baby born in the west today will more likely than not live to be 105, write Lynda Gratton and Andrew Scott of London Business School in their crucial new book, The 100-Year Life. That may sound like science fiction. In fact, it’s only cautiously optimistic. It’s what will happen if life expectancy continues to rise by two to three years a decade, its rate of the past two centuries. Some scientific optimists project steeper rises to come.

伦敦商学院(LBS)教授琳达•格拉顿(Lynda Gratton)和安德鲁•斯科特(Andrew Scott)在两人合著的的重要新书《百岁人生》(The 100-Year Life)中写道，如今在西方出生的婴儿，有超过一半概率会活到105岁。这听起来可能像科幻小说。事实上，这种设想只是谨慎乐观的估计。如果人类预期寿命保持过去200年来的增速，继续每十年增加两至三岁，这将成为现实。一些对科学感到乐观的人预计人类寿命增速还会加快。

If turning 100 becomes normal, then the authors predict “a fundamental redesign of life”. This book shows what that might look like.

如果活到100岁成为稀松平常之事，则这两位作者预言：“生活规划会出现根本性的改变”。该书展示了未来生活可能的样子。

We currently live what Gratton and Scott call “the three-stage life”: education, career, then retirement. That will change. The book calculates that if today’s children want to retire on liveable pensions, they will need to work until about age 80. That would be a return to the past: in 1880, nearly half of 80-year-old Americans did some kind of work.

我们目前的生活，用格拉顿和斯科特的话来说，是一种“三阶段生活”：教育阶段、职业生涯，然后是退休生活。这种模式将会改变。该书计算出，如果今天的孩子想在退休后拥有足够维持生活的退休金，他们需要工作到80岁左右。这相当于倒退回了过去：在1880年，80岁的美国人中将近一半人还在至少从事某种形式的工作。

But few people will be able to bear the exhaustion and tedium of a 55-year career in a single sector. Anyway, technological changes would make their education obsolete long before they reached 80. The new life-path will therefore have more than three stages. Many people today are already shuffling in that direction.

但是，在一个行当里工作55年会把绝大多数人累趴下和无聊死。不过，反正技术变革也会让他们的教育在他们远未到80岁时便已经过时。因此，新的生活方式将不止3个阶段。如今很多人已经开始向那个方向慢慢前进了。

Two new life-stages appeared in the past century: teenagers and retirees. Now another stage is emerging, say Gratton and Scott: the years from 18 to 30, which people increasingly spend transitioning from education to full-time work. Of course, many of today’s young have no choice: they simply cannot find good jobs. But the 18-to-30s have also been quickest to understand the gift of extra years, say the authors. Many young people are now consciously searching and experimenting, working out how they want to spend the next seven or so decades. They don’t want to let life just happen, as it tended to for previous generations. Today’s parents, who grew up expecting shorter lives, should stop grumbling that 18-to-30s won’t “commit”.

过去一个世纪中，出现了两个新的人生阶段：青少年时期和退休生活。格拉顿和斯科特称，眼下即将出现另一个阶段：18岁至30岁，人们越来越多地利用这段时间来过渡，离开校园，开始全职工作。当然，如今的很多年轻人别无选择：他们根本找不到好工作。不过，两位作者称，在所有人群中，18岁至30岁的人也最快地理解了寿命增加带来的福音。现在很多年轻人正在有意识地去探索和尝试，试图弄清楚自己未来七八十年想要过什么样的生活。他们不想随遇而安——前辈人往往这样生活。现在的父母从小对寿命的预期更短，他们不应再抱怨18岁至30岁的人不愿“安定下来”。

Already the young are studying longer. The authors predict that more will do two degrees: first a general undergraduate course, which teaches thinking skills with lifelong value, and then a more specific vocational degree that teaches a specific sector’s current needs. After studying, the young will spend time travelling, exploring different sectors, and assembling a “posse” of friends and acquaintances who can sustain them at work and outside for 70 years. Instead of building old-fashioned CVs, people will build reputations on social media.

现在的年轻人投入于学业的时间已经延长。两位作者预计将会有更多人完成两个学位：第一个是普遍的本科教育，教给他们能终身受用的思维能力；之后是更专业的职业学位，教授从事某个特定行当需要掌握的知识。在完成学业后，年轻人将去旅行、探索不同的行当、并建立起能够在工作和生活上受用70年的朋友和熟人圈。人们将在社交媒体上建立个人声誉，而不再设计老式的简历。

Future careers will contain many transformations. Lives will have fourth, fifth, even sixth acts. People will have to make more choices: next year, should you work flat-out in your job, return to education to learn new skills, or transition to an entirely new sector? There will be time to achieve mastery in multiple domains. No longer will women be denied careers because they took five or 10 years out to raise kids. That will still leave them 50-plus working years. Older people, especially, will develop portfolio careers. The trick will be to keep finding work that robots cannot do.

未来的职业将包含很多转变。生活将掀开第四、第五、甚至第六个篇章。人们将不得不做出更多选择：接下来的一年，你是应该全力以赴地工作、重返校园充电、还是跳槽到一个全新的行当？人们将有时间精通多个领域。女性将不再因为花了5至10年去抚育子女而无法重返职场。她们还有50多年可以工作。特别是老年人将发展出一整套职业。诀窍在于不断找到机器人无法胜任的工作。

And people will change their use of leisure. When you could expect a 40-year career followed by fat state or corporate pensions, you could spend your free time chilling and buying stuff. But the 100-year life requires more saving. You might also need to spend much of your non-working time reskilling or exercising to maintain your body and brain for those extra decades. If that doesn’t come naturally, the authors have a tip: picture your 80-year-old self sitting by your side, tut-tutting each time you scarf a doughnut or book an expensive holiday.

同时，人们将改变对空闲时间的利用方式。当你能预想到工作40年后，你可以从政府或企业领到丰厚的养老金，你就会把空闲时间用于放松和购物。但是百岁人生需要人们储蓄更多。你可能还需要花费很多的空闲时间去充电或者锻炼身体，以保养你的身体和大脑，为多活的那几十年做准备。如果你无法自觉自愿地这样做，作者有一个小窍门：想象一下80岁的你坐在你身边，每次你狂吃甜甜圈或者预订昂贵的度假行程时，80岁的你都会在旁边长吁短叹。

Longer life can come as a shock, especially to those of us in midlife. We started work thinking we’d be done by about 60, and dead at 75. But now my generation can expect to retire at perhaps 75, and live to 90. The thought of having to do your current job for another 30 years can be daunting. In any case, many of us will be pushed out in our fifties. Some people (not me obviously!) may also need second or third marriages to take them through to 90.

寿命延长可能会令人震惊，特别是对于人到中年的我们来说。我们参加工作时，以为自己会在60岁左右退休，在75岁左右离世。但是，如今我们这一代人可能预计会在75岁退休，活到90岁。想到目前的工作还要再做30年，可能会让人气馁。不过，反正我们中很多人五十多岁就会被淘汰了。某些人（显然不包括我！）可能还需要二婚甚至三婚才能支撑自己活到90岁。

In the 100-year life, age groups will mix much more than they do now. There will be more old people taking undergraduate degrees, or doing junior jobs as they descend rather than climb the corporate ladder. Many kids will grow close to their great-grandparents.

在这种百岁人生中，不同年龄段的人会比现在合得来得多。未来将有更多老年人攻读本科学位，从事初级工作（不是在职业阶梯上一路攀升，而是重新回到底层）。很多孩子会与曾祖父辈变得亲近。

Most of this is to the good. Crucially, most of the years of life gained in recent decades have been healthy ones. But the book warns that the 100-year life could become the preserve of the well-off. Already the rich outlive the poor, and they will be better equipped to reskill and change careers. Poor people could face 60 years of dead-end jobs in the gig economy, followed by death at 80 without a pension. A life like that, say the authors, is “nasty, brutish and long”.

多数改变都是好的。关键是，近数十年增加的寿命多数都是健康的寿命。但是，该书警告称，百岁人生可能会成为富人的专属。如今富人的寿命已然超过穷人，他们将更有条件去充电和改行。穷人可能会面临这样的前景：毫无前途的零散工作一做60年，没有退休金，在80岁离世。两位作者表示，这样的人生“痛苦、残酷又漫长”。