Whose Time Will Sustain Our Longer Lives?

Consider a family’s weekly calendar. One person has a work meeting, another has school. A hospital appointment, shopping, collecting medicines and accompanying an older relative must fit between them. Everything may appear to find a place. Sometimes, however, that place is made by repeatedly taking time from the same person’s own life.

We rightly regard longer lives as one of humanity’s achievements. We speak less clearly about who will organise their everyday practicalities. One person needing support does not inevitably require another person to devote all their time to providing it. How we connect those two lives involves social choices.

The United Nations’ 2026 call to rethink systems for longer lives therefore looks beyond the number of years lived. It considers how additional years can become secure, dignified lives with opportunities to participate. I see this as a chance to ask under what conditions today’s family arrangements can carry tomorrow’s needs.

Family solidarity needs support too

Caring for someone close to us can express love and commitment. Love does not remove the need for rest. Leaving employment, postponing education or narrowing an entire social life should not be viewed solely as a private family sacrifice. Such choices have consequences for income, careers and the future.

Families do not all have the same experience. Support needs, resources and relationships differ. Yet treating the concentration of care in one person as natural can conceal responsibilities that could be shared. Even relatives willing to help may not understand which tasks recur every day.

A useful first step may be to make the needs concrete. Accompaniment, preparing meals, organising household work and following applications are different tasks. Discussing who will do each and how often does not turn a relationship into a cold checklist. It may prevent one person from becoming responsible for remembering everything and always being available.

Better sharing within a family cannot meet every need. Day support, suitable assistance at home and services allowing carers a short break should be considered together. Their reliability, accessibility and cost matter as much as their existence. A service with an address but no practical availability does not lighten the calendar.

The professional value of care work belongs in the same conversation. We cannot simply demand more services without training, safe working conditions and continuing support. An arrangement intended to improve the life of the person receiving care undermines its purpose if it continually drives the worker providing it towards exhaustion.

Receiving support while retaining a voice

Another risk in discussions of ageing is reducing a person to their needs. Older people do not all require the same assistance. Needing help with some activities does not automatically remove someone’s right to decide where to live, whom to meet or how to spend the day.

One measure of a good service should therefore be how well people can preserve their own choices. Remaining at home may depend on modest physical adaptations, accessible transport and regular assistance. Suitable options should be considered with the person concerned, rather than rushing towards whichever arrangement appears easiest to manage.

Urban planning also shapes these lives. A bench for resting, a usable pavement and understandable transport information affect everyday independence. Keeping in-person assistance available while expanding digital services follows the same principle. Asking for help should not require handing all personal information to a relative.

I would not describe Türkiye’s ambition in this field solely through the number of new buildings. Local planning that identifies unmet needs, the points where families struggle and whether existing services are actually usable would be more revealing. Modest but dependable help can sometimes open more possibilities than a larger service arriving too late.

We should not greet longer lives by describing them as a burden. Those years also contain knowledge, relationships, curiosity and contribution. Our task is to build arrangements in which people remain part of life as they grow older, while those supporting them need not suspend their own futures entirely. The value of living longer will be revealed in how we sustain those lives together.