Grand Challenge: Increasing Productive Engagement in Later Life

This session will advance understanding and action regarding the grand challenge: Increasing Productive Engagement in Later Life. We will briefly overview population aging and its implications for societal and individual well-being. Productive aging orients attention to older adults’ capacity to make contributions through employment, volunteering, caregiving. This perspective underscores the challenges of transforming attitudes, programs, and policies to increase engagement for the sake of aging individuals, families, communities, and society. It also addresses the importance for social institutions to better facilitate older adults’ potential to engage in meaningful and rewarding activities.

We will then provide perspectives on “why this challenge is winnable” by summarizing exisiting evidence regarding older adults’ actual and latent potential for productive engagement, as well as current policies and programs supporting work, volunteering, and caregiving.  A panel of national leaders in advocacy, policy and program development will then respond to questions: What are their organizations doing to engage the productive potential of older adults? How has research made a difference in their practice? What challenges and opportunities are there for collaboration among researchers and practitioners to “tip the needle” on productive engagement? We will conclude with a “call to action” and provide avenues for ongoing collaborative involvement.