Looking Good, Feeling Good, Thinking Well
Looking Good, Feeling Good, Thinking Well
Older people are sharper than you think, the "figure it out" generation faces a new retirement reality, and the importance of prospects with positive views of aging.
Welcome to Longevity Gains, the newsletter for marketers and entrepreneurs who want to succeed in the longevity economy, the largest and fastest-growing market in the world. It’s the $22 trillion opportunity you can’t afford to ignore.
Given the focus on age that the 2024 U.S. presidential race has had, it’s dredged up some of the worst misconceptions about older people. Namely, that above a certain age, everyone becomes a doddering old fool.
That’s far from the truth. Research shows that in the six years after turning 75, about half of people showed little to no change in their physical, biological, hormonal, and cognitive functioning. A longer-term study revealed that three quarters showed little to no cognitive decline.
That observation runs counter to prejudices about aging, which were highlighted early in the 2024 presidential race between elderly candidates, but these biases permeate society in general. “The belief about old people is that they’re all kind of the same, they’re doddering, and that aging is this steady downward slope,” says psychologist Laura Carstensen, founding director of the Stanford Center on Longevity. That view, she says, is a great misunderstanding.
The most dangerous form of this misconception is among older people themselves, who may limit what they think they’re capable of in their 70s and up based on a fear of “inevitable” cognitive decline. Research also suggests that the best time to re-educate people about the relatively sunny prognosis for maintaining cognitive health for older adults is at middle age.
We know that people who feel they look younger than their biological age feel better about themselves. It’s time for people to understand that their mental skills are “looking good” as well.
Yes, there will be a group diminished by dementia and cognitive decline, but in general the 80-somethings “include the wisest people on the planet.”
Looking good, feeling good, thinking well. These are foundations of the revolution in consumer behavior that the longevity economy represents.
Many Older People Maintain and Even Gain Cognitive Skills (Scientific American)
The 401(k) Generation
If it’s a day that ends in “y” there’s going to be a story about how Generation X can’t afford to retire “on time” (whatever that means). All I ask is that journalists please stop making lame “Reality Bites” references in half of those articles.
Alas, this is not empty media hype. The numbers don’t add up in favor of retirement at 67 for Gen Xers even under historical standards. But add in longer, healthier lives, and the prospect seems like a bad bet for everyone other than the richest members of the generation that begins turning 60 next year.
And a lot of it can be attributed to a grand experiment called the 401(k). Early proponents of the financial product never fathomed that it would become the primary retirement savings vehicle in lieu of pensions, but that’s what happened.
“Gen X is the first generation where they were mostly expected to figure out their retirement on their own,” said Jeremy Horpedahl, an economics professor at the University of Central Arkansas and director of the Arkansas Center for Research in Economics.
The problem with a self-directed retirement plan is, well, life. The Great Recession and COVID hit Xers during a period of time when retirement savings needed to be ramped up, not raided.
Old school direct marketers who marketed financial products and newsletters to older Americans knew to never say the prospect can’t afford to retire. And even now it’s best to never say that, even though you can legitimately maintain that it’s probably not their fault.
In my view it’s much more prudent to discredit retirement itself. Remember, empowerment marketing often boils down to simply telling the truth. And the truth is, retirement isn’t that great unless you have a whole bunch of money. Ironically, those who have a whole bunch of money are often the ones who don’t even consider retirement – because their work provides purpose.
The main key for marketing to Generation X is that 60 is not “old” any more. That’s something the elder Gen Xers are already realizing as they approach the milestone. The question is not one of quitting, but instead, what’s next?
As Generation X Approaches Retirement, Reality Still Bites (Wall Street Journal)
A Country Divided
Returning to a topic we’ve explored before, the longevity economy is already here, it’s just not evenly distributed – especially in the United States.
The map above shows counties in green where average life expectancy exceeds 80 years, which is in line with other wealthy countries. The areas not in green (especially that completely bare area in the southern states) are the reason why overall life expectancy in the U.S. is only 76, which is far worse than any country in the G7 — and lower than nations such as China, Estonia, and Colombia.
People in Mississippi, which has the lowest life expectancy in the States, live to just 70.9 years old on average. That's younger than the average person living in Syria (72 years), Iran (74 years) and Palestine (73.5 years) — according to Oxford University's Our World in Data dashboard.
This just underscores the reality that your ideal prospect will have a positive attitude towards aging that translates into a longer healthspan, or healthy life expectancy. The Positive Aging Profiles in our Empowerment Marketing Toolkit can help you get a laser focus on who your specific older prospect is and what their interests and proclivities look like.
The US states where people die younger than in Palestine and Syria (Daily Mail)
That’s all for now, thanks for reading!
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