With kids gone, second careers starting and divorces common, Baby Boomers are open to new experiences and purchases.
The 77 million Boomers' collective wallet will only get fatter as they continue working. As a group, people age 50 to 60 are flush with more than $1 trillion of spending power a year, about double the spending power of today's 60-to-70-year-olds. And people now in their 50s may well work longer than any previous generation, with more than 60% of men age 60 to 64 expected to be in the workforce in 2012.
They are likely to be vigorous consumers as they empty the nest, take on new jobs, relocate, go back to school, start a second or third career, remarry, pursue new hobbies and inherit money from their savings-minded parents.
Affluent Boomers seek homes near golf courses and communities where they can exercise, volunteer, operate a home-based business and enjoy their second life. Today's fiftysomethings' flexibility stems from the fact that they came of age in the 1960s culture of unlimited possibility. "This group grew up in a time when novelty and experimentation were higher on the priority list than during the prior generation," says Yankelovich President J. Walker Smith.
According to a survey last year by Del Webb, more than three-fifths of Boomers say they're emotionally prepared for finding their new empty nest home and more than a third believe their marriage will improve now that the kids have left home. With more time to talk to your spouse and fewer things to argue about, Boomers associate the empty nest with a promising stage of life.
Source: BusinessWeek, October 24, 2005