THE AGING OF THE MASSIVE Baby Boom generation is creating an unprecedented wave of retirees worldwide, and increasing longevity means that they will spend more years in retirement than we've ever seen. These older men and women are a rapidly increasing portion of the global population, and in terms of wealth and spending, they already have disproportionate economic clout. Yet many businesses and other organizations that can and should be meeting the needs of retirees continue to ignore, misread, even alienate them. These organizations mistakenly view retirement as a time of loss and decline when, for most, it's really about new freedom and purpose. It's the emerging Third Age of Life.

Let us introduce ourselves. Ken has been involved in the study of aging, health, and longevity since 1974, when he co-founded the country's first preventative health research project, the SAGE Project, and then set up similar initiatives around the world. In the early 1980s, while advising the Office of Technology Assessment – the think tank of the U.S. Congress – he became captivated by the extraordinary ways that increasing longevity, declining fertility, and the aging of the Boomer generation were creating an “age wave.” He founded his company of the same name in 1986 and has advised more than half of the Fortune 500 while giving presentations to more than two million people worldwide. He is the author of 16 previous books, including his seminal book, Age Wave, which was published in 1989. Ken has been a leading expert, innovator, entrepreneur, and activist in the aging field for four decades. Some of his work alongside other pioneers in the field is recounted in this book.

Robert is a business researcher, writer, speaker, consultant, and authority on the intersections of business, technology, and people management. He has spent much of his career as a leader of research and executive programs in influential management consulting firms, working with hundreds of major organizations across industries. His breakthrough work has ranged from business reengineering to technology and workforce management to business analytics.

We began working together in 2000 with the project “Demography Is De$tiny” that provided the sparks for our Harvard Business Review article “It's Time to Retire Retirement,” which earned a McKinsey Award, and then our book Workforce Crisis. Our collaboration has continued in a series of studies about life in retirement, and we have worked with every industry covered in this book. We are both Boomers, born in 1950, so we have lived as well as studied the topics and trends we describe – and sometimes led the way.

Age Wave's quarter-century-long research into the changing lifescape of retirement in the United States and around the world has formed a comprehensive and holistic portrait of the experiences, values, priorities, worries, opportunities, and aspirations of retirees, with special emphasis on the Baby Boomers who are swelling the ranks and market potential of retirees worldwide. We have reviewed thousands of papers, reports, and data sets, conducted hundreds of expert interviews and dozens of focus groups, and administered cutting-edge surveys of more than 100,000 nationally and internationally representative respondents. We have endeavored at every step to understand retirement in its personal, social, economic, and cultural contexts.

This book is addressed to everyone seeking a more complete and holistic understanding of today's and tomorrow's retirees in order to anticipate their needs and provide them with informed, innovative, empathetic, and valuable products and services. That includes executives, managers, marketers, and frontline employees in businesses, nonprofits, and government and community agencies. In addition, because so many retirees and pre-retirees are curious about their own options for this new chapter in their lives, we hope they find this book to be a helpful and thought-provoking resource.

In Chapter 1 we explore how retirement is transforming at the hands of the Boomers and the myriad opportunities that creates. In Chapter 2 we discuss how ingrained ageism prevents organizations from realizing the opportunity to serve new generations of retirees. Chapter 3 describes the antidote – the imperative to reframe attitudes and practices around aging.

In Chapters 4 to 10, we detail what retirees want in the key facets of their lives: work, leisure, health, family, home, finances, and purpose. In the final chapter, we'll look ahead to how the Third Age we currently call “retirement” will continue to become a larger, more important, and more rewarding segment of people's lives. And a growing opportunity for organizations that master the retiree market.

Throughout this book, we'll share data and analysis on what retirees want, along with commentary from experts and examples of organizations that are finding innovative ways to meet retirees’ needs and aspirations. Many chapters end with checklists of actions and opportunities for organizations and entrepreneurs in relevant industry sectors. Much of our survey research is U.S.-based, and some major retirement issues, like pension and health care programs, are specific to the United States. But we also share international data where comparisons are enlightening, and many of our examples are multinational or global enterprises. The challenges and opportunities of serving growing waves of retirees are common in countries around the world.

While the chapters on each facet of life in retirement are of special importance to specific industries, we invite you to read them all for two reasons. First, because they are interconnected. For example, health and location shape opportunities for work and leisure. Work improves financial footing. Family and financial concerns are everywhere. Second, because we've learned time and again that the examples of situations, opportunities, and innovations in one industry often trigger insights and actions in another.

We hear from all the organizations we work with – business, nonprofit, and government alike – urgent demand for more information and better insight into what retirees want and how to serve them respectfully, engagingly, and holistically. We hope this book meets those needs and helps both organizations and retirees to thrive in the new Third Age.

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We completed this book and submitted it to our publisher in mid-January 2020, before the devastating effects of the COVID-19 virus were widely known. We hope that by our publication date of July 2020, the pandemic will have subsided somewhat, and the ways forward will be clearer. When we talk about this book, we expect one of the first questions will be how the virus changes what we have to say. For now, we anticipate a three-part answer.

First, everything about our lives is disrupted in the short-term and perhaps the long-term as well. We’ve seen volatility in financial markets before. Now we’re getting a lesson in the importance and fragility of our health system and supportive social networks.

Second, many of the fundamental challenges and opportunities we discuss are unchanged, while others are amplified. We more clearly see the value and power of purpose, resiliency, and (with a technological assist) connectedness across families, communities, and enterprises. And there’s heightened awareness of the need for financial planning on one hand, and societal safety nets on the other.

Third, generational differences are coming to the fore. Older people are at greater health risk from the virus. But if healthy and not alone, they have stronger foundations for coping. Most are retired from work, and many own their homes. They have the safety nets of Social Security and Medicare, and many are using their experience and perspective to help them cope better than younger, less experienced cohorts.

We hope that you and all those you care about remain safe and sound and that this book provides some helpful guidance going forward.

April 24, 2020