Page 46 - Investment Advisor - November 2021

Conclusions

RETIREMENT PLANNING
By Ginger Szala

6 Planning Points to Help Clients Live Long

and Prosper: Morningstar

Stanford Center on Longevity’s Laura Carstensen explains why people are
living longer and how it affects future planning.

Over the same time period, she added,
the fertility rate has dropped, so an age
distribution that used to be shaped as a
triangle with young people on the bot-
tom is now a rectangle.
In her interview with Benz and Ptak,
she discussed behavior that affects life-
style as well as how wealth can help add
to one’s life span. But in the end, even
the healthy and wealthy can’t avoid the
Grim Reaper.
Here are some points she made in the
discussion that advisors can think about
when helping clients plan their future.

1. AVOID THE USUAL SUSPECTS, AND
DON’T RELY ON GENES
Yes, staying healthy includes not smok-
ing and limiting alcohol, as well as get-
ting exercise and having good genes. She
n the past 120 years, U.S. life expec- has dipped since then, to 77.8 years noted, however, that “we have learned
tancy has grown dramatically. in the first half of 2020 — likely due that genes are not as important as we
IMorningstar’s Christine Benz, direc- to the opioid crisis and COVID-19 — thought they were to life expectancy.
tor of personal investment, and Jeffrey Carstensen has a long-term, optimistic The way we live our lives, lifestyles, con-
Ptak, chief ratings officer, explored this view of longevity. tribute much more to how long we live.”
topic in a recent interview with Laura “Make no mistake, I believe longer
Carstensen, psychologist and director of life can, and I believe will, improve the 2. HAVE A PURPOSE IN LIFE
the Stanford Center on Longevity, on the quality of life at all ages,” she said in a As she said in the Morningstar inter-
podcast “The Long View.” 2011 TED Talk. view, “one of the surprising contributors
Indeed, since 1900, there has been a In that speech, she explained that to life expectancy … has been purpose
68% increase in average life expectan- since 1900, we have “nearly doubled” the in life. Those people who feel like they
cy, from 47 years at birth to 78.9 years life expectancy, which is more than has matter to a cause or to other people, to Adobe Stock
at birth in 2014. While life expectancy happened than in the last two millennia. their families, those people who have a

44 INVESTMENT ADVISOR NOVEMBER 2021 | ThinkAdvisor.com