Kotler and Keller (2006) state that the population of people over 50 years old is going to be about 115 million in the next 25 years. This information is extremely helpful for understanding the needs and preferences of people in this age. The increased number of such people will require from the society to meet their needs in a better and more widespread way.
Thus, considering the marketing opportunities directed at Americans aged 50 and over, many facts should be presented. Therefore, this information may be easily considered by means of understanding whether Americans over 50 years all are guided by their age, buying power, or lifestyle. The demographical research should be provided with the purpose to predict the behavior of Americans aged 50+.
Turning to the US Census Bureau and the information they provide about American population, it can be concluded that a number of people over 50 years old in the country is more than 70,662,158 (about 25% of the whole population in the USA). It may be stated that men aged 65+ are 16,008,865 and women at the same age are about 21,971,271 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
This information may be really helpful as a number of women is more than men which may lead to the change in the preferences in traveling. Considering the poverty rates, it may be interesting to know that 10% of people aged 50 and over live below poverty level, the lowest activity if to compare with other groups (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
The following statistical information may be useful for getting to know more about people aged over 50 years old, it is considered from the U.S. Census Bureau site. There are 10,432,779 persons over 65 who live alone in their households and 26,401,621 who live with one or more people aged 65+.
These facts may help understand the buying power of people and their lifestyle. Those who live alone are freer, they are not restricted by any responsibilities. Moreover, these people search for new impressions as they are bored. This information should be used by marketers.
It is approximated that about 58 percent of females above the age of fifty five in the US are still part of the labor force. In addition, there is a growing margin of this trend that is expected to increase this population in future (Target Market News, 2010).
As a result, this brings about improvement in purchasing power, standards of living and life expectancy. A recent study shows a definitive revelation that in the event the ages of respondents are connected there is a need to rank several variables.
Considering the demographic information for management about people above 50, the information on sex by age and employment may be useful. Thus, male from 45 to 55 are numbered 18,452,577 in general. 15,609,549 are employed and 586,097 are unemployed. 2,768,572 are not in labor force in this age group.
Men aged from 55 to 59 years old (6,454,809) are also employed (4,644,142) and not (178,551), while 1,628,278 are not in labor force. 1,319,452 of 2,152,721 are employed in the group aged from 60 to 61. Only 53,897 are unemployed and others are not in labor force. The information about men from 62 and over may be distinguished in the following way: there are 17,344,227 people of this age.
Only 176,221 do not work and 13,299,523 are not in the labor force, others continue working, still, the number of working men with age decreases. In the comparison with the men, there are 19,153,032 women aged from 45 to 55. Among them, 13,648,268 are employed and 5,009,013 are not in labor force. 4,018,249 women aged from 50 to 59 are employed (total number of women of this age is 6,928,442).
It can be noticed that women aged from 62 to 64 who are not in labor force are twice more than men (2,177,618). The same tendency in observed with women after 65, there are 18,602,791 women who are not in labor force. This means that women live longer but with age they are unable to work (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
The information about entrepreneurs aged 50 and over is also important. Thus, 5.6 million American workers aged 50+ are self employed. These people expect to live on 20 years more that those who were born, for example, in 1900. The cheaper technologies and higher expectancies of living give people over 50 years old power to work.
This may explain the opportunity of people in such age to travel, they may be guided by buying power (Hopkins, 2005). Moreover, people who work after 50 years old are interested in fashion and other innovations the modern world offers. The lifestyle of such people is active.
Education plays important role in human life, especially in their life and buying power. Those people who have good education and have been working for many years can relax after 50 years old, still they want to work. His desire may be explained by a number of reasons one of which is human expectancy of life.
As it was mentioned above, people who were born 50 or more years ago expect to live rather long and happy life. It is natural that becoming older, people do not want to stay at home as they believe that movement is life. Working, communicating with others and enjoying life makes them more assured in their future.
Turning to the statistical information in the field of education, it may be said that 65.5% of people aged 65 and over possess high school degrees and only 15.5% managed to acquire Bachelor’s degrees or higher.
In the numerical correlation, 9,779,506 people aged from 45 to 65 in the USA have graduated from high school, among them only 4,381,218 have a Bachelor’s degree. Consider the information about people aged 65 and over, high school was graduated by 7,225,499 among which only 923,847 have Bachelor’s degrees (U.S. Census Bureau, 2008).
Thus, in conclusion it should be mentioned that the future number of people aged 50 and over may greatly increase, according to the research conducted by Kotler and Keller (2006). Thus, it is important to study this age group from different angles. Various facts should be considered for understanding key marketing opportunities.
The research was conducted where the information about interests, education, sex, employment and other factors was considered. It is also important to remember that modern people of this age are different from those who lived 100 years ago. Now, people aged 50+ want to enjoy their life and they expect to live more.
Reference List
Hopkins, J. (2005, January 18). The new entrepreneurs: Americans over 50. USA TODAY.
Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2006). Marketing Management. Delhi: Prentice Hall of India.
Target Market News. (2010). Consumer Research News. Target Market News. Web.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2008). American Community Survey. Web.