The future for baby boomers is clear
The over-50 community generation includes all people born between 1946 and 1964. In America alone there are around 78 million in this category called the baby boomers. According to Stats SA’s mid-year population estimates for 2008, there are almost 4 million people in the 50 – 65 age group.
The over-50 community has a unique set of beliefs and characteristics, vastly different from previous generations. This encompasses all aspects of life, affecting their beliefs about self, career, home, and leisure. Their life cycle change into mid-life will impact retailing in the next 20 years. This generation is more optimistic economically, largely since they did not experience the Great Depression. They are better educated; men continued in university and more women, seeking equality, sought a tertiary education. Women of this generation worked outside the home in greater numbers, even while raising young children. The over-50’s, especially the latter group, are more comfortable with technology, growing up within the age of computers. They are an individualistic generation, with a focus on self and a tendency to reject authority. Hectic lifestyles are common for baby boomers, with their leisure time infringed upon by the various demands of life.
As people enter mid-life, they face normal emotional and physical transitions, yet some unusual financial and employment concerns. As this generation age, they will face some of the standard chronic health problems and face their own mortality. Yet, they will strive to control the aging process with beauty products and health treatments more so than former generations.
Many people over the age of 50 are facing retrenchment as companies downsize, rather than entering a period of economic certainty, job security, and one’s peak earning years.
Their financial status is even more uncertain because the over-50 community is a spending – not a saving – generation, who liberally use credit to finance purchases. This collective tenuous financial status is compounded by the fact that there is greater uncertainty of the availability and reliability of Social Security. And, with many subsidising their own aging parents, this uncertainty is compounded.
How will the over-50 community stay financially independent if the system “forces” them out of the formal market? In South Africa we see this trend increasing, year-by-year. Many people around the age of 50, in the prime of their careers in terms of education and experience, are finding it hard to hold on to their jobs. Many factors are making it almost impossible for people in the 50+ age group to earn a living in the formal market. Amongst these factors are affirmative action, the credit crunch, company layoffs and retrenchments and a large upcoming younger generation. Rising inflation rates eats away at the insufficient pensions of the older generation. To earn a living, this generation, through necessity, is required to earn their own income – outside the formal market. Their choices are limited – they can start a new business, buy an existing business, contract their services to their previous employer or acquire a franchise.