Generation Ageless
by J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, Yankelovich, Inc.
“Boomers don't intend to age; they want to be ageless,”
Today's aging baby boomers are heading into middle age kicking and screaming, determined to remain active, engaged, and significant over the next 20 or 30 years.
In the book, “Generation Ageless,” Yankelovich President, J. Walker Smith and Ann Clurman, a senior partner, take a look at this influential generation that is “nearing traditional retirement, but is in no mood to slow down.”
Yankelovich, Inc., an organization that coined the term “baby boomer” back in the late 1960s when they first began collecting data on the generation, said “there is one thing certain, boomers have dominated and left an imprint on America.”
“Their values and aspirations set the tone for the country. Advances in medicine and health mean that this youthobsessed generation is now focused on an everlasting prime of life. They are literally middle age-less: holding onto their position at the top of the pyramid for as long as possible, and not fading away to their golden years.”
“Today's fifty- and sixty-year-old Boomers are not eagerly anticipating lives of disengaged retirement. Instead, middle age-less boomers expect another twenty or thirty years of impact and influence-albeit in a variety of ways reflective of a surfeit of agendas and ambitions they have yet to fulfill.”
Some boomers like Reno's Steve DiNicola are taking youthfulness a step further. Hitting what many believe is mid-stride, DiNicola is consciously shedding an old mid-set for a new, more youthful lifestyle. At 50, DiNicola decided to do things he'd never think to do! He became a public entertainer, singing to crowds his personal version of Frank Sinatra, and Bobby Darin classics. He discovered he could really sing…something he did before only in the shower! And those treated to a song or two, love what they hear! Along the way he also began to ballroom dance, making new friends and enlisting several dancing partners. Life could never be so good…
DiNicola says he's not alone. “I never knew I could do this, nor did I ever think I'd try. But here I am, having a ball.”
Four decades of Yankelovich research has found one thing about boomers over and over again - an unwavering determination to not get old. “Not getting old means constantly questioning and experimenting,” writes Smith and Clurman.
“Not getting old means having renewed vigor and energy for the ongoing adventure of life. Not getting old means refusing to be pigeonholed by age. Not getting old means being open to novel possibilities at each stage of life.”
Limitations of getting older are evident but are unlikely to trouble boomers to the same extent they did prior generations. While boomers will face age related infirmities and illness, it will effect them differently because of overall quality of life. Today's generation enjoys long life expectancy, longer years of “active old age.” They will, in general, enjoy longer spans of healthy years with continuing declines in chronic disabilities and mortality rates from heart disease and cancer. Although recent studies have noted there is a segment of boomers who will age worse off then previous cohorts due to lifestyles that promote obesity, asthma, diabetes, and high blood pressure, for the most part, boomers are fitter, more educated, and have worked in less dangerous occupations. In recent years they have also smoked less and have maintained better diets; they have benefited from advances in medicine and pharmaceuticals and the safety of the environment in which they work.
Middle Age-less
Boomers recognize that they are aging, but do not see themselves as getting old. They are far from the age at which they think old age begins which in a Yankelovich survey conducted in 1996, respondents placed closer to age 79.5. In 1996, the average life span in the United States was 76.1, so it is not too far a stretch to conclude “that baby boomers think they will die before they get old.” According to Yankelovich, boomers think that old age starts around eighty, and that those in their fifties and sixties are in early middle age, not early old age.
AARP surveys in 1998 and 2003 found 80 and 79 percent of boomers expect to work in retirement. The survey also found a larger percentage of boomers said they would work part-time in retirement mainly for enjoyment rather than for income. However, in more recent economic times, boomers are opting to remain in the workplace out of necessity and financial insecurity. Keeping boomers in the job market is not out of step with employers who see workforce shortages and a brain drain of experienced workers or institutional knowledge aging out of the system. The marketing of immortality to boomers is pretty straightforward: give them what they need to continue to matter forever. But there is more - middle age-less is also a state of mind.
Boomers, above all else, are determined to make fun a central focus of their life. Even in work, if it's not fun, it's not worth doing. As with DiNicola, many boomers watched fun drain out of their parents lives. Boomers are determined, even if it means changing their lifestyles, to incorporate fun into daily activities. There is also a growing and strengthened revival to connect to family, friends, and community. Boomers looking to make life meaningful in their communities are working and volunteering time in encore careers, positions that make a difference in their lives and the lives of others.