Perhaps we need a new set of work and life expectations. Doesn't it strike you as interesting that the so-called 'retirement' age (that is when you can receive full Social Security benefits) has been 65 for a long time? It has bumped up just recently -- but then so has average life expectancy. According to data compiled by the Social Security Administration: "A man reaching age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 83. A woman turning age 65 today can expect to live, on average, until age 85. And those are just averages. About one out of every four 65-year-olds today will live past age 90, and one out of 10 will live past age 95." The oldest age that SSA considers for initial full eligibility is 67 -- for those born in 1960 or later. Meanwhile, the average anticipated retirement age in the US is, what a surprise, age 67.
At the ninth annual What’s Next Boomer Business Summit, opening speaker Jody Holtzman fired up the 400+ entrepreneurs and executives in the audience with his assertion that, “In Washington, addressing the needs of 100 million people is called an unaffordable cost. For entrepreneurs, addressing the needs of 100 million people is called an opportunity.” Holtzman, senior vice president of AARP’s Thought Leadership Group, was referring to consumers aged 50+.
Sharp contrast separates business and service lenses of baby boomers. You might think you were in different planets – at last week’s Aging in America conference, on a Wednesday a discussion of "E-commerce, MobileVideo, Gaming and the Mobile Wallet" at the 2012 What’s Next Boomer Business Summit – a conference within a conference. The next day at ASA, you could consider "Successfully Integrating Boomers for a Sustainable Senior Center Model." When picturing the 50+ segment, is it the hop-skipping-and-jumping boomer, the entrepreneur boomer, the service-providing boomer, the shopper in the AARP lens of the Longevity Economy (What’s Next), or perhaps it’s the live-forever boomer, straining our budgets and reducing our expectations (ASA)?
A plethora of sessions -- but where are the exhibitors? For the past few days at ASA’s Aging in America, I heard various speakers talk about the importance of technology for older adults -- I babbled on about it a bit myself. It will make this the ‘age to age’, learn to ‘love the device you’re with’, so that you can attend sessions about designing technology for older adults, learn about tech training for seniors, see what's coming and who is doing what. The many sessions that discussed technology were categorized in the program book as ‘Housing, accessibility and technology’ – so I wondered how many consumer-focused tech vendor exhibitors were in the exhibit hall. I reasoned that all of these aging services professionals would want to know about all of the useful software and devices that they could refer to clients to improve their quality of life. Not counting the back office systems (the ERPs of aging services), I looked through the book and show floor, searching for tech to connect older adults with professionals, families and caregivers. And there it wasn’t.
Wikipedia tells it like it is, not like it was. For a brief period in the history of the definition of Aging in Place, the term was really a continuing care concept. CCRC messaging has tried to link the definition more closely with the ability to remain on a campus of independent, assisted living and skilled nursing – but I don’t think consumers view the CCRC portfolio as aging in place. In 2011, AARP issued its 2011 state-by-state report on age friendliness for remaining at home. The CDC too has been refining definitions to keep up with the times, acknowledging the National Aging in Place Council and universal design principles. Today, aging in place is almost completely disassociated from continuing care retirement communities and the senior housing industry. In fact, as a recent Senior Housing News article observed, it is a movement encompassing active aging, livable communities, universal design principles, villages, NORCs, etc. that threatens the very structure of the senior housing.
