The Boomer Generation and Their Future

Boomers are better educated, healthier, more culturally literate and more discerning consumers than the previous generation and as such they will determine their future in a new way also.

Boomers at sixty-five are no longer considered old. In many cases they don't look it and they don't act it. In one study, the senior years have been broken into sub-groups of aging where sixty-five to seventy-four year olds are considered the young-old, seventy-four to eighty-four is considered getting old and over eighty-five is the oldest of the old. So based on that, those boomers who are approaching sixty-five can still consider themselves young.

The boomer generation, as opposed to previous generations, have very different characteristics. They like to be physically active by biking, swimming, skiing, bowling and maybe even sailing if the opportunity arises. They will continue to be intellectually active and many when they retire from their regular careers will have their own in-home offices with high speed internet and plans of pursuing their own businesses so that they can continue to live a comfortable lifestyle.

Boomers are looking forward to achieving new successes, learning new skills, visiting new places, developing new friendships and strengthening family relationships. This is an opportunity for them to try a career they have always wanted. With internet they can become infopreneurs sharing their wealth of information or they may turn a hobby into a business. Whatever they choose to do, it will be something they have dreamed about.

They can enjoy flex-retirement and make plans to accomplish what they want and haven't had time to do before. Some, with their quest for learning, may decide to finish a degree, to learn a new language or an instrument or they may travel. May feel too young and vibrant to want to retire to a retirement community.

Many boomers are unwilling to be stigmatized by age and will seek out transgenerational designs to assist them when their mobility becomes an issue. Life expectancy is at an all-time high with the expectation that this will continue to be the case. Women continue to outlive men and it is estimated that by the time they reach the age of eighty-five there are two times as many women as men even though there are one hundred and five male births to every one hundred female births.

People over sixty-five will soon outnumber children under five. There are now more people sixty-five and older than the populations of Russia, Japan, France, Germany and Australia combined. The United States has more people over sixty-five than the total population of Canada.

I suspect that boomers will deny the relentless advance of aging and will live their lives accordingly continuing to believe that they still have all the world and time before them. And as long as their health remains, they will be invincible.