Shock of Gray

Today’s world is rapidly aging—by the year 2030, one billion people will be sixty-five or older. For the first time in history, the number of people over age fifty will be greater than those under age seventeen. Everyone is touched by this issue—parents and children, rich and poor, retirees and workers—and now Fishman masterfully explains how our world is being altered in ways no one ever expected. What happens when too few young people must support older people? How do shrinking families cope with aging loved ones? What happens when countries need millions of young workers but lack them? How are entire industries being both created and destroyed by demographic change? How do communities and countries remake themselves for ever-growing populations of older citizens? With vivid and witty reporting from American cities and around the world—Fishman reveals the astonishing effects of global aging and shows how nations, cultures, and crucial human relationships are changing in this timely, brilliant, and important read.

Author Biography

Ted Fishman is a seasoned financial and economic journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Money, Harper’s, Esquire, USA TODAY, and GQ. A Princeton graduate, Fishman is also a former floor trader and member of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where he ran his own derivatives arbitrage firm. He lives in Chicago.