WASHINGTON, D.C. — An age wave is coming that will be the most extraordinary demographic disruption in history, and one which will create both winners and losers in the seniors housing space, predicts Ken Dychtwald, a noted psychologist, gerontologist and author.
The number of people 65 and older in this country is projected to increase 81 percent between 2010 and 2030, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The first of the Baby Boomers will turn 80 in 2026. That demographic tsunami presents great opportunities and risks for owners and operators of seniors housing.
“You will win if you can imagine this generation, understand what’s in their hearts and souls and minds and bodies, and then project them into a stage of life that itself is morphing as they migrate into it,” said Dychtwald, founder and CEO of Emeryville, Calif.-based Age Wave, a thought leader on issues relating to an aging population, including the business and social implications.
The comments from Dychtwald came during the 2016 NIC Fall Conference at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C. The three-day event attracted a record turnout of more than 2,500 attendees, largely owners, operators and lenders. Dychtwald was the first of three speakers who provided provocative ideas on the future of aging.
The presentations, approximately 15 minutes in length, are known as “NIC Talks.” The two other speakers included in Thursday’s NIC Talks included Dr. Tom Lee, CEO and founder of One Medical Group; and Billie Jean King, legendary tennis star who serves as a spokesperson for Atria Senior Living and is the company’s first-ever active aging ambassador. (Atria operates 156 properties totaling 18,353 units, ranking the company No. 8 on the American Seniors Housing Association’s list of the top 50 U.S. operators.)
Seniors housing demographics are easier to predict than behavior, Dychtwald emphasized during his talk. “Who are the boomers going to be when they get older? If you get that wrong, you’re out. In fact, I think there are two major ways that many of you will fail. First of all, if you say ‘we are experts on older adults, there’s just twice as many of them,’ you’ll fail.”
The other way for the seniors housing providers to fail, according to Dychtwald, is to become complacent and cling to the idea that “I’m tuned in to the boomers, I understand the boomer mindset. We’re just going to picture them with wrinkles.”
Search for longevity
In the years ahead there will be an enormous pursuit of longevity and lifelong health and wellness that will go beyond anything we could imagine, said Dychtwald.
Recently there has been considerable discussion in America focused on the issue of income inequality. Going forward, people are going to come to terms with “longevity inequality” because a lifetime of wellness is about to become a prize for a generation that’s going to having aches and pains and all sorts of physical challenges, according to Dychtwald. There will be more medical breakthroughs — some of which only the very wealthy will be able to afford — that will slow the aging process. Google’s Calico, a company focused on health and well-being, is attempting to stop aging.
There are already over 100,000 wealthy Americans receiving injections of anti-aging hormones on a daily basis, said Dychtwald. “Scientists now tell us that due to exponential breakthroughs that are coming, you are going to see today’s young people living to 150 or more. The Baby Boomer generation will be at the front end of that revolution, and some will get access and others will not, and that’s going to be interesting.”
About one-third of the Baby Boomer generation is well-off financially, Dychtwald predicts. Another one-third will be able to make it through their later years with some cutbacks and careful planning or communal living. But about one-third of the Baby Boomers have less than $1,000 of net savings. “They are going to struggle in their retirement and won’t be able to afford to retire.”
Shelve the preconceptions
In 1998 at the age of 77, U.S. Senator John Glenn (D-Ohio) became the oldest human to fly in space as a crewmember of the Space Shuttle Discovery. During the shuttle mission, Glenn conducted a series of investigations into the physiology of the human aging process. In 1962, Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, doing so in his Mercury capsule Friendship 7.
“What Glenn said to the media the day he made the announcement [about returning to space] was, ‘just because I’ll be 77 doesn’t mean I don’t still have dreams,’” recalled Dychtwald.
“We think that only kids have hopes and dreams. And our communities are designed to be places where people are nostalgic for who they used to be. In the future, people will have new dreams at 60 and 80 and 100. This becomes the model of a long-live society,” emphasized Dychtwald.
The highest rate of entrepreneurial success in the last 20 years in America has been among people over the age of 50, according to Dychtwald, who added that 77 percent of Boomers indicate they want to work in retirement, but not full time. Almost half want to try something they’ve never done before.
“I think the idea that living a long life should be simply an extension of youth, or that you should simply fulfill the dreams of your childhood, is going to be replaced by the idea that maybe I could give back,” said Dychtwald. “Maybe there is a new purpose to my life. Maybe I could be somebody that I always dreamed of being. Maybe I could learn to play the piano, or paint or sculpt, or help kinds in need, or volunteer at the boys club, or go back to school. Boomers are a purposeful generation. They want to be somebody. They want their lives to have meaning. And in their later years, when they have time and affluence, they will have an enormous appetite to give back.”
Personal reflections
Dychtwald said that when he was 23 years old he became fascinated by the aging process and older people in general, and that over the past 43 years he has attempted to dive deeper into trying to figure out what occurs as the lifespan increases for a growing number of people.
Now in his mid-60s, Dychtwald is in the sights of marketers targeting the 65-and-older crowd. A few months ago he received a note in the mail from the Trident Society asking him if he’d like to become a member.
“I thought, ‘I’m a scuba diver, this must be some kind of a cool, worldwide journey.’ I opened the note up, and it was a burial at sea program.”
Note of caution
The word “seniors” has fallen out of favor with Baby Boomers based on studies of this demographic group conducted over the past decade, according to Dychtwald. He advises companies to strongly reconsider including the word in their brands.
“If you are building your communities, and your marketing and your intelligence is based on the 20th century notion that people will really want to stop work, separate from society and not do much of anything other than relax and socialize and be called seniors, you are going to fail. I don’t want you to fail.”
Biology, psychology, demography and sociology are going to mix together in interesting ways going forward, said Dychtwald.
“If you are thinking about building the housing opportunities of the future, or if you are thinking of investing, you need to understand the whole dance.”
— Matt Valley