Behavioural Insights & Ageing
Professor David Halpern CBE
Greengross Lecture, 4 November 2024
2
Health, wealth, and happiness…
3
The two systems driving behaviour
Daniel
Kahneman,
Nobel Laureate
System 1: Fast
Automatic intuitive,
effortless
2x2
Driving
System 2: Slow
Reflective deliberate,
analytic
24x17
Learning to drive
“It turns out that the environmental effects on behavior are a lot stronger than most
people expect” Daniel Kahneman, Nobel Laureate
Health: the last generation?
4
5
Why can’t we live longer?
6
Eroom’s law
7
8
10 more years of life by changing behaviours?
Risk Estimated years of lost HLE
across UK population
Diet (inc indirect effects) 2 – 4
Stress, purpose & relationships 0.5 – 2.5
Smoking 1 – 2
Alcohol 0.5 – 1
Physical inactivity 0.25 – 0.5
Air pollution 0.25 – 0.5
Total 4.5 – 10.5
Rough estimates for HLE achievable from addressing the primary known behavioural and environmental causes (Source: UK data,
Behavioural Insights Team estimates). Published by the APPG for Longevity in ‘The Health of the Nation. A Strategy for Healthier Longer
Lives’, February 2020, https://appg-longevity.org/health-of-the-nation
Wealth
9
Introduction
of automatic
enrolment
Proportion of employees with workplace pensions
10
Pensions and saving
12
13
14
Job adverts mentioning ‘flexible’ Number of
applicants
Flexible working: prompting employers led to 20% more jobs
advertised as flexible - and 30% more applicants…
15
Wellbeing
16
17
Well-being: can it be measured? (UK)
18
Life satisfaction rises with income - across countries, within
country, and over time
UK
19
20
Well-being x age
21
ONS, 2021
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/wellbeing/articles/measuringnationalwellbeing/atwhatageispersonalwellbeingthehighest#:~:text=those%20aged%2090%20and%20over,those%20aged%2065%20and%20over
22
Subjective well-being
appears to protect
against dementia
23
24
Spend your money on experiences (not things)!
Kumar, Killingsworth, and Gilovich, 2020
25
26
Anglo-saxons cohorts are getting lonelier…
(despite more frequent interaction!)
27
‘Deshrouding’
We estimate that the overall impact of
deshrouding on the economy to be between
0.23-1.03% of GDP.
Conclusion
28
29
Age is just a number?
"I want you to know that also I
will not make age an issue of this
campaign. I am not going to
exploit, for political purposes, my
opponent's youth and
inexperience."
30
Did covid make us nicer?
31
Keynes’ letter ‘for our grandchildren’ (1930)
…for the first time since his creation man will
be faced with his real, his permanent
problem-how to use his freedom from
pressing economic cares, how to occupy the
leisure, which science and compound interest
will have won for him, to live wisely and
agreeably and well.
32
Inequalities in happiness have increased across the world -
especially in older age groups
33
34
Thank you
David Halpern, President Emeritus,
president.emeritus@bi.team

ILC Greengross lecture - Professor David Halpern - 4 November 2024.pptx

Editor's Notes

  • #3 Based on this list of countries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g8fRUkkozMYPcy-wH9NMiVElRF5Cn6KRZr9kM0aG7iY/edit#gid=0 Criteria/process for determining which countries to include: -The initial criteria was all projects with a project code + delivery country (excluding speaking engagements). That list was then shared with the leads of international work in each region to double check that we had a full list -Note that this includes countries where we've launched trials as part of a multi-country trial (e.g. Twitter trial), or run workshops without doing a full TES(TS) project.
  • #7 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Erooms-law-the-number-of-new-molecules-approved-by-the-US-Food-and-Drug_fig4_326479089
  • #29 https://www.reaganfoundation.org/ronald-reagan/reagan-quotes-speeches/debate-between-the-president-and-former-vice-president-walter-f-mondale-in-kansas-city-missouri/?srsltid=AfmBOorIcDa0HeDykQoH55BBCoLpl2MmyJBE2mlfXlxi3KTDe5-hV7-I
  • #45 Based on this list of countries: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1g8fRUkkozMYPcy-wH9NMiVElRF5Cn6KRZr9kM0aG7iY/edit#gid=0 Criteria/process for determining which countries to include: -The initial criteria was all projects with a project code + delivery country (excluding speaking engagements). That list was then shared with the leads of international work in each region to double check that we had a full list -Note that this includes countries where we've launched trials as part of a multi-country trial (e.g. Twitter trial), or run workshops without doing a full TES(TS) project.