There's strength in numbers, as baby boomers born in the 1950s and 60s well know. In their teens and 20s, advertisers and sales folk fell over themselves to cater for the emerging youth market. A decade later, the media discovered it was cool to be 'thirty-something'; yet by the mid-1990s, newsracks were bulging with lifestyle magazines featuring health, fitness, parenting, interior design and other routine concerns among 40-year-olds.
Marching onwards to 50, it looks like their luck is continuing to hold. Sheer numbers still make them an irresistible force in the market place. But beyond that, they are the mass beneficiaries of increased life expectancy. Likely to live another 30 years or more beyond 50, they can take advantage of improving health to lead an active and deliberately youthful style of life.
will 50-year-old 'boomers' really look and feel like a generation that has it all?
But will 50-year-old 'boomers' really look and feel like a generation that has it all? Fit and Fifty?, a new study by Richard Scase, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at the University of Kent and Dr Jonathan Scales at the University of Essex, examines current trends and looks forward to 2010 with feelings that are decidedly mixed. Statistically, it characterises the bulge in numbers of 50 to 59-year-olds as an increase over the next two decades from 12 per cent of the total population to around 20 per cent. On the positive side it finds that, apart from less involvement in sport, today's 50-year-olds already have similar leisure pursuits to younger age groups. They are just as likely to go walking, have access to cars and satellite TV, watch videos at home, read books, engage in DIY and gardening, and socialise with family and friends. Their use of new technology may not be as extensive as that of the average 20 or 30-year-olds, but a third of men still report having a personal computer at home and a quarter of women say they have access to one.
But once it turns to health, the picture becomes more equivocal. Surveys show that women and, especially, men are more likely than people in their 40s to say their general health is 'poor' - although they are still heavily outnumbered by those who think it is 'good' or 'fairly good'. Men are also more likely to have visited a family doctor recently than counterparts in their 40s. Passing 50 appears to make little difference to the reported incidence of cancer, back problems or poor mental health. Yet feelings of anxiety do increase among 50-year-olds and they tend to be more common among women than men. There is also a significant increase in heart disease and arthritis.
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