The government should be doing more to invest in fit, healthy pensioners and should focus not on age but stages of life when drawing up policy, the government’s socio-cultural advisory think-tank SCP says in a new report.

One in five people in the Netherlands is now over the age of 65 and that will increase to one in four by 2040, the agency points out.

“Three-quarters of them are in great shape,” SCP researcher Crétien van Campen told Trouw. “They are healthy, full of initiative and participate fully in society. That is millions of pensioners with great potential.” 

Rather than breaking the population down into age groups, policymakers should look at youth as the first phase, the working population as second, the third phase of healthy retirement, and the fourth phase in which people need help, the SCP says. 

“One 67-year-old is not the same as the next. Age says very little,” Van Campen told the paper. “Someone can be in the third phase at the age of 90, whereas a 70-year-old may need help.”   

Policymakers tend to focus on the fourth group, those who need help, but this does distort the image of retirement, the SCP says. And pressure posed by having a growing elderly population in need of care can be eased if older individuals are encouraged to keep active and participate in society.  

In particular, “new goals should be set in policies for the ageing population, in addition to cost control, to emphasise well-being and participation,” the report says. “Healthy individuals live longer, are more productive, social and resilient, are better equipped to deal with setbacks and have more trust in others and society.”

At the same time, individuals entering what the SCP describes as the fourth age, who have a strong social network and good mental resilience, “are at less risk of experiencing a rapid decline in well-being,” the agency said.