I see that Torquay, our capital of longevity, has a Centenarian Doubles green bowling competition. Application forms are downloadable via the internet…..

This carries interesting implications. Not least, that centenarians are sufficiently heavy on the ground to double up in bowls teams, and computer savvy into the bargain!

I am misled of course. The green bowling competition turns out to be open to teams with a combined age of 100 plus - the rest falls into place somewhat tamely.

Nonetheless, the bit about the local glut of 100 year olds is true enough, as a glance through the South Devon press attests. Catherine Bowman, who tipped 100 earlier this year, fulfilled her lifetime ambition of riding in a red E-type Jaguar, courtesy of a local classic cars garage. Such stories abound.

All this fits with figures on the age population breakdown of the UK and the rest of the world just released. They take us on to new places. For the first time in the UK’s history there are now more than a million men aged 80 or over.

Also for the first time, there are 21 million people aged over 50 (out of a population of 61.3 million). One in 50 people in the UK are now over 85. As has already been established, people of state pension age or more (11.7 million) now outnumber those under 16 (11.5 million). We are getting older… and older….

I am not sure I buy the notion that this population ageing could carry on indefinitely as some, including Professor James W Vaupel of the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research in Germany, seem to suggest. The challenges to society and our employment patterns are immense, however, whichever way you look at it.

Vaupel and his colleagues believe that if we continue our pattern of work being intensely front loaded into the younger end of the age continuum, as early as 20 years from now, hours worked per capita will be reduced by 8 per cent. The declining young population will be continuing to work long hours whilst the burgeoning older population will be working few hours. The decline in the total hours worked will threaten national productivity, they say.

But this scenario poses challenges in the ways we organise our working lives and careers. The rigid patterns of biographies and the low employment rates at older ages are no longer sustainable in the face of demographic change. “The 20th century was a century of redistribution of income; the 21st century will be a century of redistribution of work,” Vaupel argues.

Vaupel’s case is that we simply have to rearrange the ways we live and work if we are not to be sucked under by the relentless tide of demographic change. Increasing work participation among the over-50s, using intelligent concepts of part time work, will be essential.

The changing social patterns, also highlighted by the ONS figures, rams the message home further. For example, the numbers of women of 40 plus having babies has nearly doubled in the past ten years. What was once very unusual at a particular life stage, if not now the norm, is certainly within the spectrum of normality.

So let it be in the labour market. If societies are to adequately respond to demographic change, work has to be redistributed over the life course. More leisure for those who are young, raising children and currently burning themselves out. More work for those who are older, fitter and eminently capable of working longer.

That in a nutshell, is what Vaupel and his colleagues say. I couldn’t agree more. Though if I live that long, I must confess a centenarians bowling competition might be tempting. I hope so!