Life expectancy in Asia has increased significantly from 1955 to 2020. In many Asian societies, centenarians are still celebrated, but they are no longer a rarity. Society and government policies have not been designed around the expectation that people will live to 100. Education, career, family, financial security and many other topics will be explored in the 100YLA series to address the many changing needs people and their families have as they prepare to live longer lives.
COVID-19 has brought many consequences for young and old within their communities. The 100YLA series will discuss 100 year lives in the context of a world facing a COVID-19 future.
Experts from Asia and the U.S. will be invited to discuss the phenomenon, implications, challenges and opportunities for an aging population in Asia.
Professor Kathleen Cagney, Chair of 100 Year Lives in Asia
Professor Kathleen Cagney will chair the 100YLA Conversations series. Cagney is Professor of Sociology and the College, and Deputy Dean, Division of the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. Her work examines social inequality and its relationship to health with a focus on neighborhood, race, and aging and the life course. She has developed a series of papers on neighborhood social capital and its relationship to outcomes such as self-rated health, asthma prevalence, physical activity, and mortality during the 1995 Chicago heatwave. She also focuses on the validity of such measures and the development of new neighborhood-based metrics that reflect the perceptions and experiences of older residents. Currently she works on two Chicago-based studies of neighborhood context and older adult health, and is examining the role of the social and physical environment in older adult well-being with the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.