For hundred of years humankind has been looking for the recipe of immortality. We have not found it yet bur we are getting closer and closer as people are living longer and longer. While science advances, along does medicine; who would tell two thousand years ago that people would live past the century? That the number of people over eighty in our population has grown is a fact. But the real question is, is that something we should be grateful for, or is that something that we should be afraid of? There is no simple answer to that, specially as it can be seen from to clearly different points of view: the elderly's point of view and the society's.
There is one main reason why the increase in the number of elderly people can benefit a society. In the first place, older people are nice and quiet. By this I mean that in a city with more elderly people than twenty-year-olds, vandalism rates would surely be low and there would be a notoriously smaller number of crimes than in an average city. Furthermore, the society wouldn't be the only benefited factor in that equation. The elderly's social lives would be enhanced. They would have more places to go as they would be the most abundant customer, they would meet more people their age, etc.
On the other hand, a society full of old people can carry with it a series of drawbacks. To start with, economy would be severely affected due to the fact that the elderly do not produce since they do not work. Also, they do not consume as much as young people as they stay at home and do not go out much. As for them, I do not see how this could be a disadvantage.
All things considered, even though the increase in life expectancy could certainly be seen as progress, there are some negative aspects that we should pay special attention to. As far as I am concerned, the over-eighties need to have their place in society, not to be the society itself.
