The Shift from Age to Stage

Why Should We Care?

Two Reasons Why We Should Care

1. Ageist attitudes are rampant, and those of us 60 years and older know what that looks and feels like. Embracing the ‘Stage, Not Age’ concept will help us break down stereotypes and make our lives more interesting!

2. As authors, we want to be up-to-date with what’s happening worldwide and how it will impact us and our readers. Our lives will change dramatically as we navigate the massive demographic shift that is occurring, and our readers will want our books to have characters and themes that reflect this change. As Golden says, ageing is not the problem; it’s the opportunity.

Recap

In my previous post, I introduced you to the book ‘Stage (Not Age)…’ in which Golden argues that the notion that we enter ‘old age’ at sixty-five is no longer valid, given that a person of that age may well have another thirty-five per cent of their life left to live!

Extending our Healthspan, the period during which we experience largely independent and healthy living free from serious disease, is therefore critical to enjoying life as long as possible.

People living to one hundred will experience a new multistage life, opening up new possibilities and business opportunities. Golden’s new multistage paradigm consists of five quarters, or 5Qs, which is the subject of this post.

The 5 Qs

In our current paradigm, people are lumped into age brackets, such as those aged sixty-five and over, where products are often created for older individuals. What’s missing is the varied life stages individuals live within an age-only segmentation.

Where do you sit?

Q1: Starting, Growing, First Launch, Experimenting (Okay, maybe not this one!)

Q2: Developing Financial Security, Optimising Health, Parenting, Caregiving, Transition, Relaunching

Q3: Repurposing, Renaissance, Sidepreneur, Caregiving, Continuous Learning, Experimenting

Q4: Transition, Optimising Health, Resetting life priorities, Portfolio, Continuous learning, Legacy

Q5: Repurposing, Legacy, Continuous Learning, End of Life.

The Three Segments

Golden sorts the market and its customers into three segments: Demographics, Domain and, finally, Stage.

Demographics

Drawing on the concept of where someone might be in their healthspan, Golden cites The Gerontological Society of America’s development of a five-phase approach as a finely-tuned demographic that describes functionality and health, moving beyond the notion of older adults being part of a homogeneous group.

Where do you sit?

• Go-go: excellent health, active, few or no limitations.

• Go-slow: very good health, some self-limiting situations

• Slow-go: good health; needs assistance with activities of daily living

• No-go: physical and mental conditions that require advanced care in senior nursing or assisted living facilities

Domains

Now, add domains into the mix, such as food and nutrition, fintech, fashion, travel, entertainment, housing and caregiving.

Which of the above will you be engaging with?

Attitude

(Where no numerical ages are associated with these attitudes)

Where do you sit?

• Ageless adventurers: a journey of limitless opportunities and personal growth

• Communal caretakers: a time of engaging with community and enriching personal relationships

• Actualising adults: a process of maturity and acquisition of adult responsibilities

• Future fearers: a time of anxiety and uncertainty due to risks associated with old age

• Youth chasers: a decline and loss of youth and vitality

Golden also addresses Education, which correlates with healthspan, income and wealth.

Wealth is affected by all the demographic segments. Golden states that in the US, fifty-three per cent of consumer-generated spending stems from the fifty-plus cohort, and half of older adults would live in poverty without social security.

Putting it together, Golden gives an example of how some of the above might describe the stage a particular adult is at:

Example

You are a go-go (functionality and health) seventy-year-old (age) who takes online classes (education) and is becoming a grandparent (life events) and comfortable in your age (actualised adult).

The above is a far more sophisticated and nuanced segmentation for the longevity market, providing a far more complex picture that helps to break down ageist stereotyping. This is precisely the approach we strive for as writers, especially when creating characters in their sixties and beyond.

In my next and final post in this series, I will examine what Golden’s book can tell us about longevity opportunities and how they might relate to us as writers.

How would your three segments look?