You heard it here first — unless you read Generations Beat Online, a newsletter edited by longtime age beat journalist Paul Kleyman. He coined the phrase to describe “the sociological climate change we call the longevity revolution,” and I think it’s genius.
It was also the perfect moment to encounter the phrase, as yesterday the U. S. Census Bureau released a report headlined “Unprecedented Global Aging.” Commissioned by the National Institute on Aging (NIA), “An Aging World: 2008” is bristling with statistics documenting the unprecedented rise of the average age of the world’s population. “The fact that within 10 years, for the first time in human history, there will be more people 65 and older than children under 5 in the world underlines the extent of this change,” said Richard Suzman, director of NIA’s Division of Behavioral and Social Research. The most rapid increases are in the developing world, and the fastest growing cohort in many countries (including the U.S.) is the old-old: people 80 and over. Global wrinkling for real.