John Hancock is taking a frontline position in addressing the retirement readiness crisis by entering into a groundbreaking research partnership.
On Tuesday, the US subsidiary to Manulife, the Canadian insurance giant, announced a significant research collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology AgeLab.
The five-year, multimillion-dollar partnership aims to drive innovation and research in the field of longevity, specifically seeking new insights and actionable strategies to enhance the quality of life for the aging population.
The collaboration will focus on understanding the intersection of health and wealth, exploring preventative health measures, retirement planning, and other factors critical to longevity.
The initiative comes in the wake of sobering projections by the World Economic Forum. It estimates that the global population over 60 will double to 2.1 billion by 2050, creating an increasingly urgent need for better planning and resources as lifespans increase.
“The fastest-growing age cohort in the world is people over 85. As we continue to see people live longer lives, it is crucial that we gain new insight into how we can make longer lives synonymous with better and healthier lives,” Brooks Tingle, president and CEO of John Hancock, said in a statement.
“We fundamentally believe in helping make this a reality and know that this ambition does not start and end within the walls of our business.”
A major objective of the collaboration is the development of a longevity preparedness index, which will measure Americans' readiness to live longer, healthier lives.
The index, to be produced annually, will provide data-driven insights on a host of aspects including financial planning, health and wellness habits, work and retirement transition planning, housing choices, end-of-life planning, and technological advances.
“We want not only to identify the many different dimensions of what it takes to live longer, better; but also to measure the preparedness of a nation to live 100 good years,” said MIT AgeLab founder and director Dr. Joseph Coughlin, who will lead the project with a team of social and data scientists.
The collaboration will also involve workshops and discussions on longevity, generational dynamics, new technology, and behavioral insurance.
On the back of the partnership, Manulife, John Hancock’s parent company, has joined the MIT AgeLab PLAN, an industry consortium examining how the business of advice might better prepare people for 100-year lifespans.
Research on the first index will begin in the spring of 2024, with plans to eventually include Canada.
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