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Young people struggling to break into their careers might want to see such data reported, too. Noura Berrouba, president of the National Council of Swedish Youth Organisations, told the W.E.F. panel that age-based discrimination affects the job prospects of the old and young alike. “If we’re being honest, the way our demographic curve is bending, it’s going to be a huge burden on the young generation,” she said.

She proposed more progressive tax policy, fairer wages and more corporate governance scrutiny to ensure that enough money is going into the collective pot to fund more people getting a social security check.

Berrouba also suggests that workplaces need to strengthen the bonds between younger and older employees. “If people are living longer lives — hopefully more equitable lives — we need to make sure that intergenerational solidarity is part of that,” she said. “Many young people feel that intergenerational solidarity is going in one direction. It’s going from young people to the elderly, but it’s not going in the other direction.”

Governments have made steady changes to national retirement policy in recent years. The O.E.C.D. average for the minimum retirement age is 62.5, but will tick up to 64 in the coming years as a number of countries, including Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden, push up the minimum pension age to correspond with increases in life expectancy.

Hervé Boulhol, a senior economist at the O.E.C.D. specializing in pensions, bristles at the idea of an aging time bomb threatening the world’s biggest economies. But he does see a risk if policymakers and business leaders fail to address the matter. “Yes, the clock is ticking,” he said.

– The New York Times