New Life Rules for a New Demographic Ball Game

Kentucky and the United States are are undergoing several significant demographic revolutions simultaneously. Kentucky and the United States have always resembled a pyramid-shaped population, where each younger generation was larger in number, better educated, and more competitive than the generation before We have thought of Kentucky as a state that was barefoot and pregnant, and with an ever-growing population of young to feed our schools, industries and businesses. We could take the best, and throw away the rest of the growing young work force. Take the competitive worker, and forget about the uncompetitive worker. No more!

In Kentucky we have shattered the pyramid and are actually experiencing an inverted pyramid, with a smaller base of young and a growing segment of mature workers. The "baby boomers," born between 1946 and 1964, have moved through their child-bearing years and are now being replaced by "baby busters," so called because there are fewer of them. Kentucky's youth population will continue to decline as the "busters" replace the "boomers" as our child-bearing population.

For the most part, our work force of tomorrow is just our work force of today grown older ... we will sink or swim not on how well we educate our youth, but on how well we educate our entire population, whether age 15, 35, 55, or 75 ... we will have to become a state that teaches old dogs now tricks.

We have been sold a bill of goods concerning retirement. We are living longer, are healthier, and we are better educated, yet we are throwing people out of the work force at younger and younger ages. Retirement age in 1950 was 69 years of age for men, but has been reduced to 63 years of age today. Yet most of us will live into our late 80s and 90s and some even into our 100s. Can you imagine going to work at age 20, working for 40 years till age 60, then retiring and living to be 100 - 40 years of golf or fishing after 40 years of work? Sounds good, but who is going to pay for 40-year vacation? We will have to slow people down as they become mature workers, but we cannot afford to throw them away for periods that may equal their working years in length. We are going to have to tell people the truth - if you live longer, you will have to work longer!