The Problems of Longevity

It's ironic that with everyone living longer the problem of caring for the elderly is posing challenges for our society that unfortunately are not being addressed. Personally, I don't think that the challenge of providing the elderly with decent care should be based on purely economic considerations. The obsession with "productivity" in practice amounts to trying to get more revenue with fewer workers. Standard economics does not consider that making, for example, teachers work with more students or nurses attend more patients might actually degrade the quality of service. This is a question we need to address because we are all headed there someday.