It’d been two years since I’d been to my favorite little gulf coast area of southern Florida. Two years before, finding my own age 60-something contemporaries at early morning beach yoga, laid back sunset concerts, performance art, and a growing small town farmer’s market created a new feel for the region I’d been visiting for the past thirty years since my parents first settled there.
It’d been two years since I’d been to my favorite little gulf coast area of southern Florida. Two years before, finding my own age 60-something contemporaries at early morning beach yoga, laid back sunset concerts, performance art, and a growing small town farmer’s market created a new feel for the region I’d been visiting for the past thirty years since my parents first settled there.
This year, the influx of new people was a bit startling. Each traffic light on the main commercial route, happily not where I was, pooled a good fifty or more cars with each red light. Traffic moved along okay, but not at the speed limit, and only until the next red light. It was evident the number of snow birds is increasing rapidly.
What’s been apparent to those of us working in the field of aging is quickly becoming apparent to the rest of society. Older adults will drive population growth over the next quarter century, growing four times as fast as the total population. Older adults will make up 22 percent of the population in 2040, up from 15 percent in 2015.
James Johnson is a Professor of Strategy and Entrepreneurship in the School of Business at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He views growth of the older population as an untapped engine of innovation and economic growth. He points out to his students that enormous changes in the built environment and consumer marketplace must occur, and laments that few entrepreneurs are poised to take advantage of the shifts.
Johnson focuses on four opportunities in what he refers to as a “burgeoning” market. The first opportunity is the purchasing power of the baby boomers – slated at $3 trillion in the U.S. and $15 trillion globally.
To tap into this spending power, product portfolios and sales approaches must understand a paradox; products must accommodate evolving needs that come with age, without focusing on age itself. Matthew Boyle, Bloomberg News senior reporter comments, “The company that does a great job of making products for seniors takes great pains not to make products for seniors.”
Johnson’s second business opportunity acknowledges that “technological innovations must be designed for all older adults.” He points out that most efforts to innovate have targeted the “rich and young at heart”, largely ignoring the “poor and weak-of-limb.” This is a mistake. In a process he calls “empathic design”, innovations need to maximize autonomy and independence, helping people to continue their pursuits and passion.
The third opportunity relates to growing workforce needs for direct care workers to assist older persons with routine tasks. Johnson points out that “…by 2025, an estimated 1.2 million additional direct care workers will be needed.” That’s right around the corner.
Stephen Campbell, a policy research associate at PHI, the Paraprofessional Health Institute in New York City, points out that the debate over immigration policy needs to recognize the importance of immigrants in the direct care workforce. In 2005, one in five direct care workers was an immigrant. In 2015, the ratio was up to one in four. Limitations to immigration will compound already severe shortages of workers.
Meanwhile, staffing agencies willing to develop recruitment and retention business models to attract a culturally and gender diverse workforce will profit from older population growth.
Johnson’s fourth opportunity relates to modifications needed in basically all types of real estate: commercial, residential, and public sector. The physical infrastructure of our communities must accommodate persons of all ages and abilities to ensure equal opportunity of access across the life course. He suggests that “opportunities also exist to create mixed-income, multi-generational communities that would serve as an antidote to much of the gentrification that is currently pricing older adults out of many urban communities.”
Much to think about….