Boomers

Boomer Retirement: Two Scenarios

The alarm goes off at 5:30. You blink your eyes open with a sense of ... call it joy. You get dressed in a hurry and join your boisterous and teasing friends at the golf course. After taking a sip of your latte and just as the sun breaks over the high desert, you address the ball, hitting a perfect drive. After golf, there will be an afternoon brunch for a friend's 80th birthday. Then in the evening, your beloved and you will have a sushi dinner and dance into late evening.

The alarm goes off at 5:30. You struggle to get out of bed, feeling your age, and wishing this were Wednesday, your free day. You get dressed and in the mirror you see someone out of character. The uniform fits ... but it doesn't. You hurry to get there on time. As the sun breaks through tinted glass windows, a rough-looking trucker sidles up to the counter. He growls, "Egg McMuffin ... medium coffee." Feeling demeaned, you lean over the counter and reply, "You can get two McMuffins for the price of one today, sir."

Two different views of retirement. Which works best for you? The first or the second scenario?

Most of us select the first: an idealized view of retirement as a weekend that never ends: golf, friends, plenty of resources for travel, sumptuous meals.

The future is not promising the first scenario for many Baby Boomers. From one-third to one-half will not be able to afford the luxuries implied in the first scenario. This group will barely have enough to pay basic costs of living; and many will need to work at least part time to supplement meager federal entitlements and skimpy savings.

America is facing a demographic juggernaut. An unprecedented number will soon be entering the retirement stage of life. One-third of the population will be over 50 by 2010. One in five will be over 65 by 2010.

Leisure entrepreneurs have instilled an idealized view of retirement: segregation, disengagement and fulltime leisure. The first scenario I described, while initially attractive to overworked men and women in middle age, is actually a twentieth century phenomenon ... and a disastrous view of the end of life.

Older Americans were once a central part of the social fabric, and old age was respected with reverence. Seniors played an economic, educational and social role that the young valued.

Today, the attitude is more often expressed this way: "We have met the enemy, and he is the elderly us." Today's elderly constitute a growing majority of people with unprecedented health, resources and time in a society that has no place for them: "Retirement is the absence of ideas about what to do with oneself."

Are you familiar with the Hegelian Dialectic? It's not a common construct, but it presents a comprehensible context for understanding social evolution.

The Dialectic suggests that, on the one hand, we have a thesis: in this case retirement as leisure and disengagement. On the other, we have an antithesis: retirement as nonexistent ... we work until we drop; we're too poor to stop working for the final third of life.

When these two forces collide - in politics, social policies, or whatever - eventually we achieve synthesis. This synthesis could be retirement as integration of leisure and work suited to the needs of an older person.

It's a view of traditional retirement as a time of vital engagement where our oldest citizens make their greatest contributions. It's the vision we have received from President Jimmy Carter who has achieved his finest hours since leaving the presidency. A goodwill ambassador to the world, he has devoted much of his post-retirement life to Habitat for Humanity, sweating as a hammer-wielding carpenter and a visionary of a greater social justice.

Fittingly, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for all his accomplishments since being our nation's chief executive.

That's a vision of the future we Boomers must embrace. We must change what it means to grow old in America: that the Third Age of life is the greatest time of relevancy, social value and contributions for our nation's long-term welfare.

So instead of the less fortunate ending up as greeters at Wal-Mart or asking you if they can "super size your fries," the future can bring us a mobilization of opportunities, where those who need an income, get one for meaningful work. For those who don't need paid work, they receive the valuable currency of service.

To realize this vision, we must change the way we think about old age. As importantly, society must learn to discard its prejudices: that the elderly are selfish, we can't afford them, and America is hurling toward inevitable generational warfare.

The Hegelian Dialectic delivers synthesis: a new stage of life where the successes of the middle years transform into the late-life significance of a mobilized, active, elderly generation. That is the only future worth pursuing.

When Research Matches Insight

In my book, "Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers," one chapter looks at the future of volunteerism among Baby Boomers:

"Since the mid-1970's, many Boomers have refocused time and energies on careers, child rearing, and the increasing demands of economic competitiveness, but I believe important lessons from childhood about group participation remain buried in the generation's collective psyche; many retain a spirit of social activism that took shape and found passionate direction in the sixties and seventies.

"As retirement comes closer, many are changing their focus from "success to significance," where they hope to get back in touch with youthful idealism, and perhaps rekindle a belief that single human beings can positively change the world. Participation in philanthropic causes is destined to become fashionable again."

I believed when I wrote this chapter, as I do now, that Leading-Edge Boomers are a passionately activist group, many of whom have been committed since college to philanthropic causes. It's in our DNA. Now this sense of our collective consciousness about giving back to society has been corroborated by research conducted by MetLife and Civic Ventures. As reported in the June 22, 2005 edition of the "Christian Science Monitor,' Boomers widely anticipate their retirement years as a fertile opportunity to contribute to worthy causes:

"Now change is in the air, and old stereotypes of retiring to a life of perpetual leisure are giving way to dreams of new careers after retirement. And not just any job will do for some retirees. They want work that improves the quality of life in their communities.

"In a survey called 'New Face of Work," half of those between the ages of 50 and 70 say they'd like to have a job that allows them to serve others. This includes positions in education and social services. Nearly 60 percent want work that gives them a sense of purpose and allows them to stay involved with people. The survey was sponsored by the MetLife Foundation and Civic Ventures."

The article makes another point discussed often in my book. For Boomers to achieve their dreams of leaving behind a better world, they need access to jobs and civic organizations willing to hire them after retirement. But ageism runs deep in America, and too few organizations have yet developed the policies and programs needed to embrace fully older Americans.

As the "Christian Science Monitor" article speculates, "Still, for all the idealism, only 12 percent of those in the survey think it will be easy to find this kind of 'good work.'"

It's gratifying when today's consumer research reflects some of my intuitive insights of yesterday, but I'll be even more satisfied when the nation's for-profit and nonprofit organizations fully acknowledge Boomers' strong sense of civic engagement and then provide opportunities for them to actualize their ideals.

Leading-Edge vs. Trailing-Edge Boomers

The question oftens comes to me: "What are the differences between Leading-Edge and Trailing-Edge Baby Boomers?" I became motivated to explore the diffrences (and, more importantly, the similarities) after reading an editorial in the Palm Beach Post. 

Leading-Edge Boomers (1946 to 1955) are impassioned idealists and social activists. Their younger siblings share idealism in many areas, but they are more pragmatic – some would say, realistic.

Nevertheless, both cohorts share many common meta-values. Both famously distrust large institutions and government. Both value personal freedom and individual self-expression over received authority. Trailing-Edge Boomers (Jonathan Pontell’s Generation Jones) may have been too young to recall much about the sixties, but they were old enough to be molded by the detritus left from civil rights, Vietnam and Watergate.

Further, because of the long-term impact of many social movements that dominated the sixties, both groups firmly respect racial and cultural diversity, believe in safeguarding the environment, insist upon equality between the sexes, and seek personal expression and individual liberty as central to the American experience.

Both Boomer cohorts have more in common than differences between Boomers and younger or older generations. These common values include personal development, psychological growth, health & wellness, environmental sustainability, social responsibility, egalitarian principles, and making a difference or creating a legacy.

Pontell uses demographic slight-of-hand to make his Gen. Jones cohort appear larger, more economically viable than the Leading-Edge group. Demographers and sociologists have for decades agreed that the Leading-Edge Boomers were born between 1946 and 1955, and include 38,002,000 Americans, according the National Center for Health Statistics. Trailing-Edge Boomers, born between 1956 and 1964, include 37,818,000 Americans.

A critical factor delineating a Leading-Edge from a Trailing-Edge boomer is to determine when an individual reached adolescence. Leading-Edge Boomers all came of age during the Vietnam War era, which ended in April 1975. Thus, those born in 1955 had celebrated their 19th or 20th birthdays by the end of the war.

This war was the single most influential factor in the Leading-Edge Boomer coming-of-age zeitgeist. Pontell makes many excellent points in helping us understand historical nuances and the influence of pop culture on cohort characteristics. But he also casts these differences in an “us” vs. “them” framework. In the future, we must bring generations together if we’re going to become less divisive as a society and more capable of honoring the unique contributions of each generation.

Ward Churchill and Abbie Hoffman

    

Fist squeezed tight, arm raised at a forty-five degree angle above his head, a salute of defiance and unity, and then a strident affront to the offices of power. The embattled CU professor Ward Churchill focused his ire on the most visible symbol of gathering critics, Colorado Governor Bill Owens.

"I do not work for the taxpayers of the state of Colorado. I do not work for Bill Owens. I work for you," he clamored to the crowd of applauding students.

To light this fuse, the brazen professor had written an essay calling the "technocrat" victims of New York’s World Trade Center bombing "little Eichmanns." Speaking harshly to those who would still his pen or silence his censure, the long-haired professor propelled me back in time. To the monolithic Allen Fieldhouse on the campus of the University of Kansas. To a nation divided.

On the empty stage stood the enigmatic Abbie Hoffman, then the most outspoken and celebrated figure of the student radical movement. As I recall, his stopover had been hurriedly announced the day before, yet this bellicose jumble of curly black hair strutted easily before an overflow crowd. Hoffman was the infamous character from the 1968 disruptions of the Democratic National Convention, and subsequent defending court jester in the Chicago Eight trial. He had breezed into Lawrence as a latter-day, word-toting gunslinger, taking potshots at students’ consciousness.

Too many years have passed for me to remember Hoffman’s exact words on that winter day in 1969, but I recall the spirit of his message. This was a time when mainstream society demanded uniform thinking about the nation’s most sensitive political issue: the Vietnam War. To denounce the war was tantamount to deprecating patriotism.

Hoffman had his way with us, even if privately we found disagreement over injurious words and acerbic humor. He used language as a cloying lancet, exacting psychic pain to focus attention. He asked us to sort through years of conditioning and psychological dominance from the nation’s bully pulpits. He spelled America with a "k." He tailored the flag into his shirt.

Hoffman tends to be remembered for his impish stunts during the sixties, for example, attempting to levitate the Pentagon with the psychic powers of a chanting crowd. But I remember him in the same way that today’s college students may someday remember Ward Churchill.

Both embody the iconoclast who challenges conventional thinking, who takes ideas to excess. Their words bully, berate, and embolden. They demand unfamiliar thinking from the impressionable. They galvanize the less so.

They grope groupthink.

They may be dislikeable cads. Their ideas may incite. But they bring something else to the American dinner table.

Beyond indignation, outrage, and pain, they inject conversations with deeper explorations of our social contract. Who are the enemies? Our allies?

When is America noble and correct? When have we disavowed our cherished values?

I didn’t like Abbie Hoffman, and don’t like what the media tell me about Ward Churchill either. The CU professor reputedly stiffens his back against reasoned criticism. He may revise the truth to fit his prejudices.

But Churchill has contributed something I can’t dislike: He’s sparked passion in complacent college students.

This, in my mind, is education close to the bone. And for this, I hope the Abbie Hoffmans and Ward Churchills of this nation can never be pushed off the front page or edited from telecasts. They tap into that most profound and productive facet of awakening youth: unrelenting impatience to improve the nation.

Zeitgeist Boomer

 

An underpinning construct driving generational marketing is a theory posited by German social psychologist, Karl Mannheim. A "zeitgeist" is a shared feeling for an era, or a spirit of a time. I'm convinced that Leading-Edge Boomers, all of whom became young adults during the Vietnam War era and the "cultural revolution," experienced one of the most powerful, indelible coming-of-age periods of the 20th century ... thus leading to many common, deeply held values: desegregation, women's rights, environmental awareness, anti-authoritarian tendencies, etc.

This phenomenon is not typical of every generation; those becoming young adults during a less chaotic period are less likely to experience such a strong sense of generational connectivity.

Although Mannheim's theory has never been proven empirically, neither has Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy-of-needs model of psychological development. This powerful model of human motivation has been widely adopted, has unassailable construct validity, and continues to explain many complexities of human behavior.

The zeitgeist theory does not mean Leading-Edge Boomers can be reduced to simplistic stereotypes. Much of my book denounces stereotypes. However, all marketing segmentation leads to actionable generalizations, some are true and nearly universal; others vary widely on an individual basis. My new theory of “bi-polar metavalues” makes a case that many boomer values exist on a continuum with wide variability in individuals, thus bi-polar (the same boomer can be both spontaneous and disciplined under different circumstances).

White House Forum on Aging

White House Conference on Aging – Solutions Forum

Presented by Brent Green, author of Marketing to Leading-Edge Baby Boomers and member of the American Society on Aging, Business Forum on Aging, Leadership Council

“I hate the Baby Boomers. They're the most self-centered, self-seeking, self-interested, self-absorbed, self-indulgent, self-aggrandizing generation in American history. As they enter late middle age, the Boomers still can't grow up. Guys who once dropped acid are now downing Viagra; women who once eschewed lipstick are now getting liposuction.” — Paul Begala, in an April 2000 Esquire Magazine essay entitled “The Worst Generation”

Boomers are waking up to the reality that they are the aging population to which many negative images now apply. This came home to me upon discovering a multi-page harangue against Boomers in a June 2000 TIME magazine article entitled Twilight of the Boomers. Written by the current ombudsman for the New York Times, here are representative quotes:

TIME MAGAZINE – JUNE 12, 2000

“The Baby Boom was a self-absorbed generation … that defined itself not through sacrifice as its parents had, but through indulgence.” — Ralph Whitehead, Professor, University of Massachusetts

“Long-awaited Baby boomer die-off to begin soon, experts say. The ravages of age will take its toll on Boomer self-indulgence, and the curtain will at long last fall on what is regarded by many as the most odious generation America has ever produced.” — The Onion, as quoted in TIME

When I started noticing, I didn’t have difficulty finding other sources of Boomer derision in media:

JOE QUEENAN – author of Balsamic Dreams: a Short but Self-Important History of the Baby Boomer Generation

“They’re self-centered, rude, and obnoxious beyond belief, and they’re everywhere. Until the rise of the Baby Boomers, America only had to deal with a few thousand geographically spaced people who acted like pigs. Now it has millions of them. This is the downside of prosperity.”

AARP THE MAGAZINE AND BOOMER STUDY

At the AARP National Convention in Las Vegas last October, organizers distributed a study prior to the 2011 Council meeting, entitled “A Changing Political Landscape: As One Generation Replaces Another.”

This study sampled 603 boomers, 600 silents, and 601 GIs. A sample size of 603 does not adequately represent 78 million Boomers. According to the chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Colorado, AARP researchers failed to adequately represent many critical Boomer segments such as Hispanics. Nevertheless, the study reaches sweeping, negative conclusions:

“Our findings indicate that boomers have a greater belief in government entitlements and a lesser belief in personal obligations than the GI Generation. Boomers are more likely to feel the government owes them something and less likely to believe they owe the country certain obligations, such as military service and paying taxes.”

Aspects of this study and negative Boomer stereotypes also appeared in the September / October 2004 issue of AARP: the Magazine.

TIME MAGAZINE – JOE KLEIN

What does all this negativity have to do with the White House? After President George Bush’s inaugural address in January, Joe Klein, TIME columnist and CNN pundit, wrote an essay assessing the speech, entitled “Playing with Fire.” Here are a couple of Klein’s conclusions:

“But ours is also a generation that has self-indulgently perverted (Martin Luther) King’s call to freedom into a defense of excess, of freedom from responsibility.”

“Bush, in the end, is a classic baby boomer. His was a speech that could only have been delivered by a member of our exorbitantly messianic generation.”

NEWSPAPERS

Newspapers across the nation often lead Boomer-critical columns and articles with less-than-generous headlines:

“As they head into the sunset, nation’s boomers are a bust” -- The Seattle Times – 9/28/04

“Ravenous baby boomers set to devour health care dollars” -- Booth Newspapers – 9/22/04

Stereotypes also lurk in marketing. My book assesses negative stereotypes in recent high-profile advertising campaigns created by a global electronics manufacturing company and a global pharmaceutical company.

Therefore, I propose two recommendations:

1. Formation of a national organization that studies generational antipathy and identifies stereotypical and denigrating images in advertising and media communications, with focus on Boomers, but not limited to this generation

2. Eventual federal funding in the form of grants for selected nonprofit organizations that successfully promote positive images of aging generations and promote intergenerational harmony

Why should these initiatives be a White House mission? As a leading-edge Boomer, I remember two presidents who tackled social injustice of a different type. I’m referring to John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson who helped eliminate institutionalized segregation in America. The social challenges for this administration are ageism and generational antipathy.

Finally, I’ll leave you with a closing thought. There is no “Greatest Generation,” because such a notion leads to the opposite conclusion: “The Worst Generation.” This great nation represents the achievements of 15 great generations. We need this idea to become part of the fabric of society.

Greediest Generation

Baby boomers have constructively transformed America.

This can’t be fully defended in a few paragraphs, but too many critics today gracelessly malign the generation. Critical newspaper editorials appear almost weekly. Columnists with the New York Times and other media too frequently deride Boomers, accusing them of being narcissistic, self-involved and greedy.

A few years ago, TIME magazine trumpeted “America’s Best: Science & Medicine.” Of 16 people profiled, only one is not a boomer. The finest neurosurgeon, the most respected biomedical engineer, academia’s leading paleontologist … all boomers.

Two ardent boomers led teams to decipher the 3.1 billion biochemical units of human DNA — perhaps the greatest scientific achievement of the 21^st century — also heralded on the cover of TIME.

The desktop computer and the Internet originate from such Boomer names as Bill Gates, Steven Jobs, and Tim Berners-Lee.

Then there is apparent disregard of the spirited social revolutions championed by the generation … for equal treatment of women and racial minorities — a cleaner environment and more accountable government.

Men and women of extraordinary passion and courage are creating the Boomer legacy every day … in hospitals, in laboratories, in schools and in City Hall. Their lives are answering the call to service.

This blog has two purposes: to present a balanced analysis of Baby Boomers and to showcase the businesses and marketers that are getting it right.