Fisher flags a new study that ranks America “eighth in the world for the wellbeing of the elderly.” Why America scores so high:
[E]ducation and employment opportunities for elderly Americans are some of the best in the world. Actually, second-best, behind only Norway. As the report explains, “Older people value their capacity to work” because they “wish to maintain social contacts and self-worth” as well as remain self-sufficient. In most countries, people start getting locked out of the labor market once they get older. The United States is unusual in that the elderly face less age discrimination and have an easier time getting the education and skills to remain competent members of the workforce. That’s not just good because it means they can work if they want to, but because it allows them to be active and self-sufficient, which go a long way toward promoting health and happiness.
Paradoxically, this may also partly be a product of the United States’s relatively weak social safety net; the report finds that elderly in the United States have “the lowest levels of dependency on public transfers” of wealth in the world.
The Dish 