The world is on the top of a staggering rise in the number of old people, and they will li

ve longer than ever before.【C1】______the next 20 years the global population of those aged 65 or more will almost double, from 600m to 1.1 billion. The experience of the 20th century, when longer life【C2】______more years in retirement rather than more years at work, has persuaded many observers that this shift will lead to slower economic growth and【C3】______, while the swelling ranks of pensioners will smash government【C4】______. But the notion of a sharp division between the working young and the【C5】______old misses a new trend, the growing gap between the skilled and the unskilled. Employment rates are falling among younger unskilled people,【C6】______older skilled folk are working longer. The【C7】______is most extreme in America, where well-educated baby-boomers are【C8】______retirement while many less-skilled younger people have dropped out of the workforce. Policy is【C9】______responsible. Many European governments have abandoned policies that used to encourage people to retire early. Longer life, combined with the replacement of generous pension plans【C10】______meaner ones, means that even the better-off must work longer to have a【C11】______retirement. But the changing nature of work also plays a big role. Pay has risen sharply for the highly educated, and those people continue to【C12】______rich rewards into old age because these days the educated elderly are more productive than their【C13】______. Technological change may well reinforce that shift: the skills that【C14】______computers, from management expertise to creativity, do not necessarily【C15】______with age. This trend will benefit not just【C16】______elderly people but also, in some ways, society as a whole. Growth will slow less dramatically than expected; government revenues will be in better【C17】______, as high earners pay taxes for longer. At the other end of the social scale, however, things look【C18】______. Manual work gets harder as people get older. The rapid innovation has raised the incomes of the highly skilled while【C19】______those of the unskilled. The consequences, for individuals and society, are【C20】______.

【C1】

A．Above

B．Over

C．Among

D．Before