J. Walker Smith - Generation Ageless

The tagline for the 2006 release of Rocky Balboa , the sixth installment in the Rocky movie franchise, says it all for Baby Boomers nowadays: It aint over til its over.

The original Rocky , in 1976, made a mega-star of then thirty-year-old Baby Boomer Sylvester Stallone. Depicting a small-time boxer who gets by as a debt collector for a loan shark in Philadelphia, the movie follows Rocky Balboa as he trains for a long-shot, once-in-a-lifetime fight for the heavyweight title. But Rocky is realistic. All he wants is to go the distance, which, against all odds, he is able to do. Now, thirty years and four sequels later, the sixty-year-old Stallone plays an aging Rocky who comes out of retirement for an exhibition fight against the heavyweight champ.

In describing the moral of this film, Stallone was quoted in a New York Times article as saying that while many of his Boomer peers are now feeling pressure to step aside for the next generation[t]his film is about how we still have something to say.1 This is the Boomer attitude in a nutshell. Boomers will fight to make sure they continue to matter and have their say. They intend to go the distance.

The notion that Boomers are going to keep at it no matter how old they get runs counter to our expectations of old people. Yet this is the reality for aging Boomers. They have no intention of giving up on lifes possibilities. Boomers dont intend to age; they want to be ageless. It is this continuing, emphatic engagement with life that is the future of Boomers and the subject of this book.

Mattering

Without question, over the next ten to fifteen years Boomers will change the ways in which they live and work. But Boomers are not pondering their endgame; theyre thinking about new possibilities. They want to keep going, not let go. In particular, they mean to have a pivotal influence on the way things unfold in the future, however old they are. This will require a new way of thinking about the aging U.S. population. Boomers are ready to reinvent themselves in order to continue to matter.

As Boomers look ahead, two things are uppermost in their minds: endurance and impact. To continue to have a say that matters, they must first continue to be around, and then they must make a difference. So, the future for aging Boomers is a matter of having both a presence and an influence. Or to put it in the way that best reflects the edge they give to it, its a matter of immortality and morality .

These are not entirely new ideas to Boomers; this generation has long been concerned with both. But these two ideas are gaining salience and traction with Boomers as other concerns lose relevance and sway. This dual focus on immortality and morality will steer them as they plot their course to go the distance.

This book is about the impact and implications of immortality and morality for the future of aging Baby Boomers, and thus for the future of the American consumer marketplace and American society as a whole.

A New Self

Boomers may be aging, but they do not see themselves as getting old, no matter how many candles get crammed onto their birthday cakes with each advancing year. Of course, its not as if Baby Boomers literally believe they can live forever, even though they act like it sometimes. Rather, they believe they will live longer and better than generations before them, so they intend to use this additional time to remake the world into a better place. To put it simply, Boomers are Generation Ageless.

To ready themselves for the future, aging Boomers are reconsidering and reinventing their sense of self. Despite the physical challenges and limitations of aging, they are rejecting a view of themselves as old people. Instead, they are planning for an old age in which they are no less active, involved, and important than they are today. Boomers want midlife to continue forevermore, or at least for many decades more. Aging Boomers want to be middle ageless .

The opportunities made possible by an ageless midlife will afford Baby Boomers the unique luxury of a second shot at changing the world for the better. Moral priorities are growing among them, with interests running the gamut from social causes to spiritual revivals to personal charity. Boomers have planted these flags before, of course, but now, with more time, more money, and with fewer distractions or diversions, they are planting them again with greater urgency. A sense of a righteous self is on the rise.

This dual focus on ageless endurance and the righteous self defines the generational character with which Baby Boomers will meet the future. Immortality and morality are the two things to know about this generation in the decades to come.

Starting Points

Talking about the character of an entire generation of people is, admittedly, somewhat abstract. After all, a group of people 78 million strong born from 1946 to 1964 includes many types of persons and personalities. Can there be a single character to such a diverse group? Well, yes. Take a look at Figure I-1.

Yankelovich, Inc. began studying consumer values and lifestyles in 1958 with the founding of our research firm by our renowned namesake, Daniel Yankelovich. Since that time, Yankelovich has made a continuous study of the attitudes that motivate peopleBoomers especiallyand the ways people make important decisions in their lives, buying decisions in particular. Yankelovich research is one of the most comprehensive and detailed sources for understanding the evolution of lifestyle values and consumer motivations during the late twentieth century.

Figure I-1: Comparing Cohorts

In the late 1970s, Yankelovich research showed that Baby Boomers were very unlikely to favor a return to traditional standards in almost every area surveyed. Only for family life did a slight majority of them prefer a return to traditional standards. Obviously, not all Boomers felt this way, but the character of the generation as a whole was pretty clear.

The baby-bust Generation X (GenX) that followed Baby Boomers, born from 1965 to 1978, had a different view. At roughly the same age that Boomers were when we interviewed them in the late 1970sthe oldest Boomers in 1977 were thirty-one; the oldest GenXers in 1997 were thirty-twoGenXers were more likely in every instance to favor a return to traditional standards.

GenX did not get started with the same mix of values as Baby Boomers. However, as also shown in Figure I-1, Baby Boomers and GenXers felt the same way in the late 1990s. But this doesnt mean that these two generations are the same. While they are in agreement as contemporaries, each generation got started in a unique way. This difference in starting points is the essence of what is meant by generational character.