it means paying for health care and welfare is one of the biggest challenges facing governments all around the world. but this older generation, it represents a huge commercial opportunity. so, how do businesses capitalise on the silver consumer? i'm going to be discussing all of that with these two. there they are. professorjane falkingham is director of the centre for population change, and drjoe coughlin, who's the big boss at the mit age lab in boston. also on the show, i'm joined by the big boss of moleskine. yeah, the luxury accessories company still providing beautifully bound notebooks to every generation. after three years at the helm, daniela riccardi is going to tell us how the business is adapting to the changing demand for stationery. wherever you'rejoining me from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. three score years and ten. what's that? well, it's an ancient biblical number expressing a typical healthy human lifespan, 70 years. but it was only in 2010 when the global life expectancy finally passed that number. you know, an average baby born today should now expect to live to 73. it's near enough doubled in 100 years. but of course, that figure hides big variations. girls, they should expect to live a few years longer than boys. wealthier people tend to be healthier as well. 0n the whole, they live longer lives. naturally, you see disparities between rich countries and poor. here's how global life expectancy has changed since 1950. injapan, it's now approaching 85 years old. in the united states, it's about 80, and it's close to that, 79, in china. in india, the world's most populous nation, it's 72 years old. and in sub—saharan africa, it's generally much lower. in fact, in the central african nation of chad, one of the world's poorest countries, the life expectancy there is just under 5a years old. and that, tragically, is a country where one in ten children die before their fifth birthday. but life expectancy is improving near enough everywhere. and that presents, well, huge challenges, but also huge opportunities for those of us living much longer than our ancestors. i can see why we worry about an ageing society. but it seems to be a fundamentally good thing. we have to mourn fewer children. we mourn the passing of fewer parents in middle age, and we get to see more grandparents and even great—grandparents meet their grandchildren. that's a great thing. i think if we can exploit that age diversity and really make the most of those intergenerational relationships, that's a real positive. and of course, if underneath, we can make these longer lives notjust longer, but healthier and more productive for longer, they also create the economic resources necessary to pay for this longer life. but some societies, they're struggling to cope with these big demographic changes. i mentioned japan — with the world's oldest life expectancy, japan also has the world's highest proportion of elderly citizens. the birth rate there is low, so is immigration, so there are big questions about how to pay for social and health care for tens of millions of older people. there's a similar issue in south korea. its proportion of elderly people is expected to surpass that ofjapan in the years ahead. the birth rate has been falling since 1960 and the population is now in decline. it's expected to fall by half in the decades ahead. china's one—child policy was closed down back in 2016, but the birth rate remains low, especially as more and more women want to enjoy careers in the big cities. the ageing society is well under way in italy and women are having fewer children. governments there are offering financial incentives to have bambinos, and a quarter of women have none at all. there's a growing reliance on young migrants to bolster that workforce. in some parts of the sub—saharan africa, falling infant mortality means a growing number of today's children will grow old. a bulging elderly population is to be expected in the years to come. many countries are increasing their pension age, of course, to keep people working and paying taxes for longer. here in the uk, an 18—year—old entering the job market today should expect to retire at 68, or possibly even older. in france, president macron, he recently raised his country's pension age from 62 to 64. but, boy, it triggered months of protests and riots. those reforms are being phased in from this month until the year 2030. so, my first guest is a specialist researcher in demography and international social policy at the university of southampton, and she's also director of the centre for population change at the economic and social research council. professorjane falkingham, a real pleasure having you on the show. and, jane, let's start with this because global life expectancy, it's rising. 0n the face of it, that's great news, right, for individuals or for families? but, jane, i'm just wondering, what kind of societal challenges does it pose? it's fantastic news that life expectancy is rising and it's rising right across the globe. but of course, it does have challenges, with more people living longer. one of the things is we've got more people living now into their 70s, 80s, 90s, and even into their hundreds. life expectancy is why we as individuals are living longer. but actually, it's falling birth rates which is why societies as a whole are ageing. we have fewer people of working age to support more people of older ages and, of course, that then presents challenges in terms of, how do we take care of those older people, their health? their well—being at home. and also, their incomes, pensions. i think it's one of the biggest challenges, probably the changing age structure of our populations and climate change are probably the two biggest challenges i think we're facing. which countries find themselves most exposed to health care or welfare risk, as a result of these ageing populations? the countries in the world which have the highest proportions of older people are those in the global north, but it's taken us quite a long time to get there. so in france, the population went from 7% aged 65 to 1a%, a doubling, and it took 115 years. so policymakers and planners had a pretty long time to plan that. that same transition has nowjust taken place injapan and it took 26 years. so that's really not a lot of time to plan for changes in your population age structure. i want to look at sub—saharan africa, jane, because the life expectancy there, it's rising rapidly as well. but these are countries where it's approaching 65, instead of 85, in nigeria or chad. i mean, the life expectancy there is still in the mid—fifties. life expectancy in sub—saharan africa is still quite low because they still have relatively high infant and child mortality rates. but if you get beyond, say, age five or six then, actually, your life expectancy is now starting to run into the 60s and 70s. and i've done some work in the slums of nairobi with colleagues in kenya, and there are old people living in the slums in nairobi. what measures can countries take to adapt to the challenges posed by these ageing societies? i mean, if you look at health care in particular, how can that be made affordable when the call on health care, one would assume, it's going to be dominated by the very old? we know from research in the global north that the most expensive year in terms of health care is the year immediately before you pass away. so first of all, that's a big thing, is to actually introduce more preventative health care. and then, actually, i think we need to start having probably a grown—up debate around end—of—life and end—of—life care. so in countries such as the netherlands now, actually, people can make the decision to have an assisted suicide and a good death. so, a good life, followed by a good death. jane, let's talk about the costs of pension bills, because in the past, the pensions were a liability to be paid out for two or five years. but now, many people are living decades into retirement. surely that's unsustainable? there are a number of different levers that you can pull with pensions. so the first of those is the age at which people start to take their pensions. so a lot of countries are looking at raising the age of retirement. so taking my own example, for example, when i started work in the 1980s, the retirement age for women was 60, it's now 67, and it's going to be going up even higher. the second tool is to then think about actually, who's contributing to pensions as well. and we've seen a massive change in the labour market over the last 30 years, particularly with women. so increasing female labour force. and then the third tool that governments have and businesses as well is to think about the structure of those pensions. so, to what extent are they related to your salary, in terms of defined benefit or whether they're contributing pensions? jane, how do you see national workforces changing in the years ahead? we're already starting to see that workforces are becoming older, particularly in the global north. in the global south, of course, they've still got fairly young populations. but in the north, we're seeing a shift of the age of the workforce upwards. and i think employers are now starting to think about, well, what does that mean? how do they reskill their workforce, lifelong training initiatives. and also, they need to start to think about the other demands that are placed on people as they become older. if you look at your 50s and 60s, you're starting to care for your older parents. you may be caring for your grandchildren to enable your children to start participating in the labour market. and you're working. so how do we balance off all of these different roles and responsibilities? and i think employers are starting to recognise that they need to be a little bit more family—friendly, introducing carers�* leave and things like that. and let me end on this, jane, i mean, are you hopeful? i mean, there's some really big challenges ahead for some of these economies that we've been discussing. how are we going to navigate this reality of living longer so that it actually becomes an opportunity and nota burden? we're living at a particular moment in human history where populations are being reshaped. so for the last million, 2 million, 3 million years, populations have been shaped like a pyramid, with a few people at the top ages and then most people at the bottom ages. we're reshaping. so we're moving from a pyramid to a skyscraper. and in a couple of hundred years�* time, that would just be completely normal. so we're actuallyjust going to have to come up with a new way of thinking about things. well, on that point, professorjane falkingham, a real pleasure having you on the show. thanks forjoining me and we'll check in with you soon. lovely to be with you. well, the work of my next guest explores how global demographics, technology and changing behaviours are transforming business and society. he's the big boss of age lab at the massachusetts institute of technology, the mit. he's also the author of the longevity economy. he's been an advisor to several multinational companies and even the white house. drjoseph coughlin, a real pleasure having you on the show. and i know you like to go byjoe. so, joe, let's start with this, because we've just been hearing from one of my other guests, a demographer, who's explained the societal challenges of ageing populations. but, joe, i want to know, what are the challenges that you see, especially for businesses? frankly, there are many challenges, but longevity or ageing population should also be looked at as an amazing opportunity. we've never had this many older people. and frankly, living this long and this well. so some of the challenges, however, are what will they want? how do we keep them engaged? how do we maintain productivity in an ageing world? these are notjust challenges, but they're global opportunities as well. we're now in an era when people who do retire in their 60s are often still very healthy. how are businesses reacting to that ever—growing class of consumer? i want you to imagine this. the 60—plus consumer worldwide is the third largest global economy in the world after the gdp of the us and china. and yet, they only get, on average, 2% to 3% of the advertising dollar. some of the things that businesses can do to respond to this amazing market that is growing worldwide is to actually start looking at them as a market, doing more research to understand the amazing diversity in the ageing population. this is not your grandfather's old age. this is the most educated, best income that we've ever seen in an older population in history. start understanding that most older adults do not want to buy or wear anything that says "old man walking" or "old man about to fall down". largely, we want products that, should we say, help us age by stealth — whether it's the the apple watch that has a motion detector that can tell whether or not you've fallen and can't get up, whether it's products like honda's element or renault�*s twingo that are easy to get into and have easy—to—read dashboards that are made for young kids, but older adults like it too. 0r, frankly, even dyson vacuums and hair dryers that are designed with elegance and great colour, but are very light and easy to put over your head or vacuum the floor. what are the barriers, or some of the barriers, for businesses fighting to exploit the ageing marketplace? probably the greatest barrier for business and, frankly, society in general is the story of old age. business, like many of us, unfortunately, continues to believe that, you know, those older people, they don't buy anything new or they're not willing to change brands or they're set in their ways. or the big myth, they don't like technology. these beliefs are actually keeping them from innovating things that excite and delight the most lucrative, largest, fastest—growing market in the world. and by the way, you may find it fun that the catalyst to this innovation in the longevity economy are women. indeed, in the longevity economy, the future is female. joe, we've seen retirement ages creeping up in many countries, and especially to try and control the soaring costs of paying out for pensions for decades. how will that affect businesses accommodating more workers in their—late 60s, maybe even into their 70s and their 80s? these workers, shall we say, have the skills that make the business do what it does. they have the memory of why businesses do certain things and not others. and frankly, in many cases, they even have the contacts with the clients that keep things going. but business is going to have to rethink things like flexibility, rethinking promotion, and older workers are going to have to appreciate that just because you've been on the job for 30 or a0 plus years does not necessarily mean you continue to get paid 30 or a0 plus years the same way. i'm also wondering now, what do older workers and younger workers have in common in the workplace nowadays? you know, we'd like to believe that there's this generational conflict out there. in fact, one of the things that's emerging since the pandemic in particular is a convergence of ideals. so younger workers want flexibility largely for quality of life. older workers want flexibility for quality of life, as well as jobs like care—giving or transitioning down. younger workers want to be trained and kept up to date with technologies and processes. older workers that have been in the workplace for 20, 30, a0 years also want training and education to make the business case that they can remain in the workplace. so we're seeing a convergence, not a divergence. what about us, joe, you and i? i mean, given a fair wind, we might hope for more healthy years than our ancestors. how do we make the most of that? you know, you have to think about this, that the average retirement age and period that we call retirement today is going to likely be the same amount of time as it took you to get from 21 years old to midlife crisis, a6, a7 years old. so think about the time, the diversity, the experiences you had during that period. now we're looking at from 65 to 85 and change being a full 8,000 days — or one third, if you will, of your adult life. what we have to do is we have to start writing a new story of old age. it has to be more than golf, beach walks, and please let it be more than pickleball. let's talk about paying for it. because, joe, you know, we're staring in the face of enormous pension bills and we have to save for that. and for the probability, there's no guarantee of that longer life. some of us could save hundreds of thousands, possibly $1,000,000 for retirement in our working lives. and by a cruel stroke of fate, we may end up not seeing a penny of it. imean... and yet, we have to save aggressively, yeah? yes, we have to save aggressively. and unfortunately, most of us are not. we have to start thinking notjust about whether our health wealth span will, shall we say, coincide with our life span. we also have to start thinking about, what are we going to do with that time? where will we live? what will we do? some of the things we may want to think about for people like you and i that effectively get paid by running off at the mouth or driving a keyboard is we may choose and may need to work longer. what i worry about are the people that work with their bodies, the bricklayers, the truck drivers, those are the folks where retirement was truly made for them because by 50—something, your body begins to give out. and, joe, let me end on this, because this trend of ageing has been ongoing for some time, essentially since the, well, the industrial revolution. how long might it continue? how old do do you think we'll get to in the future? i think that we are going to continue to see things where100 is going to be the new norm. let me leave you with this. some research indicates that children born already in the last 20 years, one half of them only in the industrialised world, but hopefully expanding beyond that, one half of those children will make it past 100 in change. the challenge now is not just to live longer, but how do we live better? well, on that point, drjoseph coughlin, the big boss of mit age lab, really appreciate your time. thanks forjoining me and i'll talk to you soon. real delight. take care. let's talk luxury now, because my next guest is the big boss of moleskine. that's the italian accessories company notable for its beautiful stationery products, its bags and gifts. she's been running the company since april of 2020, just as the covid pandemic was hammering society everywhere. prior to moleskine, she also led some other big brands, such as diesel and baccarat. daniela riccardi, a real pleasure having you on the show. and, daniela, let me start with this, because we've been talking on this show about the ageing society — basically, how more and more of us are living longer into retirement. i'm just wondering, is this something that moleskine is addressing as you look out into the marketplace? i'm also wondering, is there an opportunity for you to target, as they call them, the silver consumer? thank you. this is a big question. i think moleskine, you know, is one of the beautiful, is a brand that lives with you for your life, is the place where you treasure and you record all your life. so most of our consumers and clients are really aficionados. they start when you're young and they keep going until the end of their lives. a lot of people give them as a gift to senior people, to the silver client, as you call it. i actually call them golden clients because they are the ones that have been with us the longest. and it's beautifulfor them to be able to continue record the journey of their life. so they are our most beloved clients. and, daniela, we know you sell a range of luxury products. i'm just wondering, how are you finding the current economic climate? is it having a big impact on the business? i'm sure the luxury sector is probably the most resilient during crisis time. so the brands, i think, that have a strong standing, a strong heritage, a strong credibility, like i'm lucky to be at moleskine. i've actually chosen also for that because i like clear brands, brands that are built to last. same for baccarat, you know, over 250 years. imagine how many crises that brand went through, how many wars and economic crisis. and still, the resilience of the brand was pretty incredible. the luxury consumers is less affected by economic difficulties than other consumers. has the war in ukraine had any impact on you? i'm just wondering, does moleskine still sell in russia? we don't sell directly in russia. we don't have our own operation on the ground. but as a principle, we don't discriminate clients and consumers. so i'm sure that there are many russians that are still using and buying moleskin and have access to the brand. in ukraine, of course, the situation is very difficult, but we have been sending a lot of moleskine, blue and yellow moleskines, particularly for children. and, daniela, as we know, more and more people — and it's notjust the young people — we're using tablets, we're using laptops, etc, to get work done. do you see technology as a major competitor to your brand? moleskine was created in the �*90s by three friends, italian friends, and they created it with the idea of moleskine to be the companion of a technology device. so, in fact, we know that the combination of writing and sketching and then bringing everything on the digital platform offers the best possibility in the process of idea creations and creativity in general. and we know that moleskine, it's, you know, you're a global company. you've got very strong european roots, of course. but i'm just wondering, daniela, do you see cultural differences in your business around the world? i have to tell you, when it gets to handwriting and sketching and drawing, we see about the same behaviours all over the world. we have a pretty big business in the usa. we have business in latin america, we have business in asia. japanese, chinese are very fond of writing, of calligraphy, journaling. so the state of the development our business depends on the fact that we started in europe first and we went to the us and we went to asia last. but from a consumer acceptance and consumer behaviour point of view, i have to say we see about the same dynamic everywhere in the world. and, daniela, let me end on this. what would you like the future of moleskine to look like? the mission we have of unleashing the human genius through pen to paper, because this is an important part of the human capital, we don't like to lose it. so the most important thing is really understanding the power that it is into using pen to paper. we are clearly a respected brand for our story, for our heritage. and, you know, we want to show and empower people. so showing the importance of unleashing the creativity. well, on that point, daniela riccardi, the big boss of moleskine, really appreciate your time. thanks forjoining me. good luck with everything and we'll talk to you again soon. thank you. well, that's it for this week's show. i hope you enjoyed it. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. of course, you can also follow me on x! x me. i'll x you back. you can get me @bbcaaron. thanks for watching. i'll see you soon. bye— bye. hello there. we've got a september heat wave building over the next few days with lots of dry weather, lots of sunshine, and rising temperatures. we're looking at probably the hottest days wednesday, thursday, when we could see temperatures reached the low 30s. now, most of us had sunshine today. we've seen temperatures go past 26 degrees in a few areas. the one place that missed out on the sunshine and warm weather, the far north of scotland where we had a bit of cloud and rain. and after a locally misty start to the day, we saw that sunshine really coming through across the board. this was penzance in cornwall, doing quite a good impression of the tropics, given the plants we've got across this part of cornwall. now, overnight tonight, we'll keep the clear weather, a few mist and fog patches are quite likely to develop. it's across shetland. we might see a few occasional patches of rain, but otherwise it's a dry night. temperatures 12 to 16 degrees. the next few days weather—wise dominated by this big area of high pressure that's overall just to the east of the uk. and it's this that will be bringing dry, sunny and very warm weather our way. now from monday morning, you might start off seeing just a few early morning mist and fog patches. then they'll clear away within the first couple of hours of the morning, then sunshine across the board for most. the exception, again, the very far north of scotland might see a little bit of rain for shetland, but i think brighter weatherfor 0rkney, the hebrides and highland scotland as well. temperatures the highest across england and wales, reaching 27. but the warmest spots of scotland and northern ireland will also see temperatures into the mid—20s. so for many monday's going to be a warm day. and that warm theme continues for tuesday as well. as i say, for most of the uk it's looking like another dry day with plenty of sunshine around, perhaps a little bit more cloud again across the northern isles of scotland, but otherwise sunshine across the board. and for wednesday probably a few more mist and fog patches around. some of those might linger around some of our coastal areas, particularly through the irish sea. but across the inland areas we'll have lots of sunshine once the early morning mist and fog patches have cleared out of the way, and it continues to get hotter. temperatures could reach 30 degrees celsius, and that's not far away from the highest temperature we've recorded all year, which currently stands at 32.2. stays dry and sunny for most thursday, friday, saturday. so only really until we get to sunday when we start to see a change to cooler, more unsettled weather conditions. live from london, this is bbc news. calls for the government to get a grip on the crisis of crumbling concrete in school buildings, but the chancellor insists children will be kept safe. we will spend what it takes to sort out this problem, and parents should know that. they should also know that we won't take any risks with their children's safety. ukraine's military claims it has managed to break through key russian defences near the south—eastern city of zaporizhzhia. we'll speak to a former nato analyst in a moment. a powerful typhoon has hit southern taiwan, the biggest storm to strike the island for four years, bringing heavy rain and winds of up to a 190 kilometres an hour. hello, i'm lukwesa burak. the chancellor, jeremy hunt, says the government will spend what it takes to make school buildings safe that are affected by crumbly concrete. however, labour's calling that a bare bones response to what it says is a crisis. more than 100 schools have been forced to close buildings and others could follow because they contain a type of concrete called raac, which may crumble after several decades. 0ur political correspondent, tony bonsignore, reports. ferryhill secondary school in county durham. corpus christi catholic primary school in brixton.