TOPIC: 1st Grade ( Practice 1 )

 

 

[ Three reasons / 200 - 240 words ]

 

 

Thanks to many advances in medicine or technology, many nations around the world enjoy prolonged life expectancy today. Although some argue this is a generally good trend, I believe increasing longevity can do more harm than good to society.

 

First, increasing longevity can boost healthcare costs for elderly people. Needless to say, people are more likely to succumb to serious illnesses as they get aged, which requires the government to allocate more funds to healthcare services, such as health insurance. Moreover, with the birthrates dwindling in most developed countries, fewer and fewer young people enter the workforce. As a result, most nations with increasing longevity have great difficulty offering the elderly population proper healthcare they deserve.

 

Second, increasing longevity can put the pension system in danger of bankruptcy. In many cases, people start to receive their pensions at the age of 65, but the longer they live, the longer they need to rely on their pensions to keep their sustenance. Since the life expectancy in Japan today is over 80, the government has to provide many of the citizens with pensions over 25 years, which can place a great strain on the current pension scheme.

 

Finally, increasing longevity can place a heavy burden on medical institutions as well as households with elderly people. Most nursing homes or retirement homes have already been saturated and many elderly people have no choice but to wait for many years before they are admitted. Even worse, many young couples these days, both go out to work and don't have much time to care for their aged parents.

 

For these reasons, I believe increasing longevity has negative effects on today's society. As the increasing world population live longer than ever, it is easily predicted that many nations around the world will be struggling to deal with aging society.

 

 

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