Ted C. Fishman: Shock of Gray: The Aging of the World's Population and How it Pits Young Against Old, Child Against Parent, Worker Against Boss, Company Against Rival, and Nation Against Nation

In December 2010, The Globe and Mail wrote this about the author and his latest book: The effects of an aging population will touch every family, every workplace, every public debate in the West over the next 50 years. As Ted Fishman’s new book Shock of Gray explains, nothing will ever be the same. Fishman, a journalist, former trader and author of China Inc., has produced a deeply reported book that traces the scale of demographic change across the globe: from Japan, mired in a demographics-driven economic slump, to the depressed industrial heartland of the United States, where growth means more care homes, to Spain, a country that bristles at immigration but grows increasingly dependent on migrant labour. Read that Globe and Mail piece here. Also in December of 2010, U.S. News and World Report invoke the author and his book in this way:

[Holding] on to a job in your 60s or finding a new one can be difficult. "Workforce participation among older workers is higher than it has ever been and so is unemployment," says Ted Fishman, author of Shock of Gray, a book about the world's aging population. Once unemployed, older workers generally remain out of work longer than their younger counterparts. The average duration of unemployment for those age 55 and older in November 2010 was 45 weeks, 12 weeks longer than it takes the typical younger person to find a job. When Marty Colletti of Austin, Texas, a former account manager for Dell, was laid off in March 2009, it took her nearly two years to find a new job at a comparable level. Colletti, who will turn 65 in May, began a new job at a smaller company as a search engine optimization consultant in December 2010. "I tend to attribute my age to it taking so long to get a job," she says.

See that U.S. News and World Report piece, titled "The Baby Boomers Turn 65," here. See also: China, Inc.: How the Rise of the Next Superpower Challenges America and the World