A post that’s been making noise on Facebook and LinkedIn recently claims that the most productive years of a person's life are between the ages of 60 and 80. Citing an unverified and ultimately debunked “study” from the New England Journal of Medicine, the post insists that the elderly are more productive than any other age group and questions why companies should even bother hiring younger people in senior positions.
It is false and it's counterproductive.
This kind of rhetoric is dangerous. While it's important to honor and respect the wisdom, experience, and contributions of older generations, it should never come at the cost of dismissing and undervaluing the youth. To invalidate the power and promise of younger workers is to gamble away the very future of an entire nation.
But before anything else, let’s get the facts straight. The New England Journal of Medicine never published such a study. Fact-checking platforms like Snopes have thoroughly debunked the claim. The citation used was fabricated. Yet the post continues to be shared, and surprisingly, praised online, clinging to misleading statistics about Nobel Prize winners, CEOs, and church leaders as if to “prove” that productivity belongs only to the silver-haired.
That narrative conveniently leaves out something essential: at some point, every older person in the workforce today was once the youngest person in the room — new, unproven, full of energy and ideas. They were given a chance. They made mistakes. They learned. No one is born old.
According to Deloitte’s insights, younger generations, especially Gen Z, are poised to bring unprecedented skills and innovation. This includes digital fluency, data comfort, adaptability, and creative thinking. But to unleash their full potential, they must be trained, mentored, and, most importantly, hired. Work isn’t about who has decades behind them, it’s about who is prepared to carry us forward through the decades ahead. And more than that, it is about how willing mentors are to pass on their knowledge, and surpass them.
Japan, for instance, is now facing a profound demographic challenge. One in ten of its people is over 80 years old, with one-third of the population over 65. As the World Economic Forum reported in 2023, this has led to labor shortages, economic stagnation, and strains on public finance and healthcare. Japan has started investing billions in training programs and robotics, and is even encouraging the elderly to remain in the workforce. But it also faces a ticking time bomb: low birth rates, fewer workers, and an economy at risk of collapse under the weight of its own age.
This isn’t a dig at seniors, their contributions remain invaluable. But if we ignore the next generation, we risk stalling innovation, overburdening older workers, and creating a lopsided economy with no succession plan.
The workplace of the future must be multigenerational. It must allow Gen X, Millennials, and Boomers to pass on knowledge to Gen Z and Gen Alpha, not hoard it. It must be flexible, inclusive, and dynamic. And it must reject the zero-sum thinking that pits generations against each other.
Mentorship, apprenticeships, training programs, latticed career paths, and skills matching, these aren’t just HR strategies. They are long-term investments in the future of any economy or industry. If we want our companies to grow, our societies to thrive, and our nations to remain competitive, then we must let the young rise. Let them explore. Let them experiment. Let them lead.
They will be our next CEOs, our doctors, our engineers, our innovators, our lifesavers. And if we deny them the opportunity to begin, we deny ourselves the future we claim to want.
So no, the best work doesn’t always come at 60 or 70. Sometimes, the most revolutionary work comes from a 23-year-old who’s just been given a chance.