Interviewed by Bill Vicks in the US

I was recently contacted by Bill Vicks in Texas who is a portfolio worker and amongst other things has a site called BoomersNext Step.com.  Bill interviewed me about the work that Mike and I have been doing relating to the over 50's and it kind of moved over into the work that I have and currently am doing with Katie Ledger on portfolio careers. I do apologise for the length but as Bill put it I am a recovering academic! So be glad I did not talk for 50 minutes without stopping. This is only 19 minutes so would just have qualified as a TED talk......

This gets syndicated to a multitude of sites in the US.


Anyway if you are really bored do have a look.

Boomers all over the world are redefining retirement

Boomers at every stage they have passed through have had a fundamental impact on our social institutions. It is not surprising therefore that they are redefining retirement. In the UK more people are delaying retirement because they have to but many more are doing so because they don't want to. 30 -40 years of doing very little that is meaningful is having a real impact on people's thinking. We all need work be that non-paid or paid. Meaning is the new money. And the boomers want lots of it! Look at a recent Canadian article : "When I visited an art festival this summer in Peterborough, Ont., I was struck by how many artists were Baby Boomers who had retired from 30-year-plus careers in business or government and finally took the plunge as creative artists. Tina DiVito, director of retirement strategies for BMO Financial Group, noticed the same trend during a trip to Quebec City in August. 'They're not trying to make millions but it's very rewarding to a lot of people."

Other Boomers will build home-based businesses, using the Internet. Anyone on Twitter is familiar with the hordes of Internet-based marketers, selling products or services through multi-level marketing schemes, affiliate programs and their variants."

Three years ago, a BMO study found most Canadian Boomers planned to work "in some capacity" after traditional retirement, with the top two reasons being "to stay mentally active" and "stay in touch with people." Money was third. In 2009, the three were reversed, with more than 80% citing the need to "earn money" in retirement or semi-retirement.

The growth in self employment in this age group, often because of difficulty in finding a job after 50 or not finding one that is flexible enough is testament again to this development.

The 20th century model of education, paid work and retirement is collapsing in front of our lives.

Are boomers and Gen Y's really so different?

A fascinating article in the FT describes 2 studies, one from the US and the other from the UK, which shows a remarkable convergence of values between the over 50's and the Gen Y's. The US study showed that : *More than 90 per cent of Gen Ys and 85 per cent of boomers seek new experiences at work *Flexible work is important to 89 per cent of Gen Ys and 87 per cent of boomers *Almost as many boomers as Gen Ys want to work remotely some of the time (63 per cent and 69 per cent respectively) *Only 14 per cent of boomers and Gen Y are work-centric *Over 60 per cent of Gen Ys and boomers see a parent-child dynamic in work relationships between their generations *Some 58 per cent of Gen Ys look to boomers for advice and 58 per cent of boomers like helping them "navigate" work.
This is great news for organisations who are wishing to use older workers as mentors and coaches and also for those who fear that these 2 huge population groups have little in common.

How do you address the over 50's?

Discovered this fascinating piece on Dick Strouds blog which raises all the issues as to what we like to be called. he came across this from a the recent Older Richer Wiser conference at which there was a presentation from Warner Leisure Hotels. I have posted on this before but just what do you like or not like to be called?

Britain’s population time bomb? The challenges and opportunities of an ageing society

This is the title of an expert panel meeting at the Royal Geographical Society on Tuesday 16 June at 19.00 until 20.00. Doors open at 18.00

Britain’s 17 million baby boomers are fast approaching retirement age, with over 65’s now outnumbering under 16’s for the first time. What are the challenges and opportunities that this presents Britain?

The expert panel will explore issues such as the changing nature of retirement; the importance of older people in the workforce; the increasing pressures on public services; and how Britain is adapting to an ageing society.

Chair:

• Samira Ahmed, Channel 4 News Presenter and Correspondent

Speakers:

• Rosie Winterton MP, Minister of State for Pensions and the Ageing Society, and Minister for Yorkshire and the Humber
• George Magnus, author of The Age of Ageing (2009)

Booking & tickets: RGS-IBG members £7, non-members £10. Call the Events Office on 020 7591 3100

Generations online in 2009

Internet users take part in different activities based on their age group. That's according to a report, "Generations Online in 2009" released by Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Each age group, whether it's Generation Y or Baby Boomers, are all active on the Internet but do different activities. Generation Y, those between ages 18 and 32, comprise 26 percent of the adult population and 30 percent of the Internet-using population. Among the generational age groups, this is the largest.

Generation Y is also the most social. This group is most likely to use the Internet to play games (50 percent); watch videos online (72 percent); send instant messages (59 percent); use a social networking site (67 percent); create a profile on a social networking site (60 percent); read a blog (43 percent); create a blog (20 percent); or visit a virtual world (10 percent).

"Generation Y is the most well-rounded," said Susannah Fox, associate director at Pew Internet. "They are the most likely to have access to the most online technologies most of their adult lives. That means they probably can't imagine a world without these online activities. They probably never had a chance to form habits like older generations, and probably seems natural."

Social networks are high on the list of activities of Generation Y, a trend cited in an earlier report released by Pew Internet.

Generation X, defined as those between the ages of 33 and 44, share some similarities with Gen Y. Like Gen Y, people in this age group are likely to play games online (38 percent); watch videos online (57 percent); get job information (55 percent); send instant messages (38 percent); use social networking sites (36 percent); create a social networking site profile (29 percent); read a blog (34 percent); and create a blog (10 percent). Where those in the 33 to 44 age group stand out is in research.

Yet, this cohort is more likely than Gen Y to get information on health (82 percent); buy online (80 percent); bank online (65 percent); or visit government Web sites (64 percent) than other groups.

"Generation Y is most likely to have sampled most of what's available online, but generation X seems to be in a life stage that gives them the opportunity to use the Internet experience that they have," Fox said. "They're a pretty wired generation, plus they're at the point online where they're starting to manage some capital."

The population between 70 and 75 years old has grown the most. In a 2005 Pew Internet study, 26 percent were online. At this time 45 percent of the age group is now online.

"People are aging into this group," Fox said. "People are hanging onto their Internet connection through their life stages. We see the saturation start to seep into our older populations."

E-mail is heavily used across all age groups, though Internet users ages 55 and older rely on the medium more heavily. Ninety percent of younger Boomers (ages 45 to 54) and older Boomers (ages 55 to 63) are equally likely to use e-mail online. What they call the Silent Generation(Ughh!), defined as those between 64 to 72) uses e-mail (91 percent), while 79 percent of the G.I. Generation, ages 73 and older, uses e-mail.

Search, watching videos, news, and travel are also universal categories across all age groups.

"This report can give some nuance to the stereotypes we hold about generations and online activities," Fox said. "Some of these stereotypes hold true. It's pretty likely that teens with Internet access will go on social networking sites. It's also true that if you're in your 70s it's less likely you will have Internet access and will stay in the shallow waters of e-mail and searchThen there are those people in the middle, who are also doing interesting things."

Pew Internet conducted a series of telephone interviews in August 2008 of adult Internet users to compile the data for the study.

Baby boomers will extend the global crisis

A SHARP drop in the number of baby boomers in western economies will exacerbate the global crisis, according to a report by Merrill Lynch.

It says that "median" baby boomers are now moving into their 50s, past their "peak-spending age" of 47 years.

Combined with an end to the era of ever-increasing credit, the ageing population means that the global recession will last until at least mid-2009 - and possibly much longer - far outstripping the typical post-war recession.

"After a buying boom over the past 20 years ... it looks as though the boomers are done," David A.Rosenberg, North American economist at Merrill Lynch, said. "For the first time in four decades, we cannot expect to see the demographic cushion to consumer spending that helped ease the blow in each of the recessions dating back to the 1970s,"

Studies show that by the age of 47, people have bought the biggest house they are likely to buy, they are earning the most they are likely to earn, and their children have mostly left home, leaving them more disposable income to spending on "dream-fulfilling" goods. Spending on Harley Davidson motor bikes, for example, is higher in the 45-50 age group than any other.

But beyond age 47, people enter into a more frugal era of their lives when they are more likely to trade down than up, and consumers are not so much buying new goods as replacing old ones.

In short, their biggest contributions to the economy are behind them.

This correlation between the number of baby boomers and growth in the stock market was first noticed by American investment strategist Harry S.Dent who, in the 1980s, saw two graphs -- one of the S&P500 Index and the other of birth rates. He spotted that the graphs were virtually identical, but on a 47-year time lag.

Using this technique he was able to predict the collapse of the Japanese stock market in 1989.

Based on this "spending wave" theory, the more 47-year-olds in an economy, and the more people there are approaching that age, the better the economy should perform.

But if the numbers are declining, it spells bad news for the economy and therefore the stock market.

"American consumers have been the engine-room of global growth for decades," Shane Oliver, chief economist at AMP Capital, said. "Fewer US consumers spending less money will mean less demand for imported products from all over the world."

At the same time, Rosenberg said the "buy now pay later" days are a thing of the past, with Americans likely to save much more of their income instead of borrowing to shop on credit.

"The 20-year secular credit expansion came to an end just over a year ago, an unprecedented event in the last six decades and, in most cases, beyond our own collective personal experiences," Rosenberg said.

"As mentioned, this is a recession that may ultimately be labelled something a little different once we come out the other side - not unlike how the Great War ultimately was renamed World War I."

Certainly, he is forecasting a far longer recession that is more like pre-World War II recessions.

"In the post-World War II era, recessions last 10 months on average. We were spoiled," he said.

"There have been only two credit contractions we can draw inferences from: the 1930s and Japan in the 1990s.

"And we must respect the differences and understand the similarities. But what we learn from recessions that are rooted in shrinking household balance sheets is that the process of de-leveraging, asset liquidation and debt repayment, tends to last years -- not months or quarters."