How Emile Ratelband gets us to rethink our age

Emile Ratelband is a Dutch television personality and motivational speaker. He recently initiated a lawsuit in the Netherlands to officially have his year of birth changed from 1949 to 1969. That would effectively lower his official age from 69 to 49.

It does, yes, and he could be doing it just for all the attention he is getting, but some of his arguments are borderline persuasive.

His case is that just as it is now possible to have your name — and even your gender — changed, it should be possible to have your age changed to reflect how young (or old) you feel.

Even the judge hearing the case conceded as much. But Dutch newspapers feel that in the absence of an established legal framework to incorporate such a change, Ratelband may lose.

Ratelband reckons it will enhance his employment prospects, given the age-ism that typically prevails in workplaces (although the Netherlands Constitution forbids age-based discrimination in employment). Also, he says, listing his age as 69 on the dating app Tinder limits his choice of partners, whereas “when I’m 49…, I will be in luxurious positions.” He claims that his doctor says he has the body of a 45-year-old.

A verdict is due in two weeks. But even now, the case has set off a debate around the sociological and economic underpinnings of the ageing process.

Developed economies in the West, and particularly in Europe, are grappling with two strands of a demographic crisis: an ageing population, with higher life expectancy; and a shrinking working population. As an OECD report on ‘Ageing and Pension System Reform’ noted, “These demographic trends are likely to have a number of significant macroeconomic effects”, with pension systems in particular coming under great strain.

If you look beyond the attention-seeking nature of his petition, there is a larger solution embedded in it.

In a 2012 document, ‘Demography, Active Ageing and Pensions’, the European Commission argued that “enabling older workers to remain in productive employment is therefore a critically important condition for generating future economic growth and employment opportunities for people of all ages.” Getting the elderly to work also typically delays the start of the pension payouts: a senior citizen who is still in employment will likely defer his pension drawals.

In fact, in his petition, Ratelband offered to renounce his right to a pension if his age was officially changed to 49!

In a sense, yes. But developing countries, including India, face other kinds of problems. For instance, India has, on paper, a favourable demographic, with a median age of 28, but there aren’t enough jobs generated each year to absorb the new entrants to the labour force. Additionally, their skill base renders them virtually unemployable. But even in India, people like Karthyayini Ammal, the 96-year-old woman who recently topped a literacy test in Kerala, keep reminding us that age is, in the final analysis, just a number.

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