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Graph description further down.

When my little brother was a kid he used to answer the question of what he wanted to be when he grew up with a firm and certain: ‘a pensioner’. Quite insightful, I must say, for a 5 year-old, but I guess he’d simply realized what so many pensioners-to-be are starting to realize as the day of retirement draws nearer. According to a recent study of the state of the elderly and elderly-to-be in Sweden, the UK and the US, life satisfaction increases steadily from the age of 47 and four out of five in this age group have a positive view of their coming years in ‘life’s third act’. This all the while two thirds of the same respondents fear that the care system for senior citizens will not be able to look after them when their time comes.

The study, presented by Kairos Future in cooperation with a number of Swedish companies and institutions*, is Kairos Future’s fourth in line of studies of attitudes among the baby boom generation. Previous studies being carried out in 1999, 2004 and 2008, they have all followed the same baby boom generation born in 1945-1954. It was first in the third one that the scope was expanded to include also the UK and the US.

Below I share a couple of highlights from the study:

1. Contentedness of life in general increases steadily from the age of 47. Graph above depicting contentedness of life. On the y-axis the scale of contentedness and on the x-axis year of birth of respondent. The arrow points at respondents of 50 years of age. As graph shows contentedness of life increases steadily from just before this point in time (and has a bottom low between age 35-45 (youngest respondents of study were of 30 years of age)).

2. The primary focus of most to-be pensioners is to stay healthy, both physically and mentally. To keep the brain alert and maintain an active lifestyle are top priorities for most baby-boomers. Many also say that they want to keep contributing to society to a larger extent than in earlier studies and statistics also reflect this fact showing that the number of 66-year olds that are still working have increased from 19% (1997) to 36% (2009). This is also reflected in that few of the already retired wish that they would have retired earlier (only 7%), whereas a larger group wish they would have retired later (20%). Which leads me to the last of the interesting findings I have chosen to highlight.

3. Many suspect that society’s elderly care won’t be able to support them, when they reach the later stage of the Third Age. As many as 37% of the baby boomers, and 35% of the 30-55 year-olds doubt this. Kairos Future have created an interesting graph depicting how society’s changing demography in the past century puts a lot more pressure on the working generation in order to sustain those not working, since we both start working later in life, and live longer after retirement today, than 90 years ago. Question is – will society be economically sustainable with people only working one third of their lifetime (as suggested will be the case if the demographic development continues til 2040, without changes to the number of working years)? Or will things have to change, and in that case, how? Is the current debt crisis around the world maybe even an early reflection of society’s debts to its people that is simply running out of hand due to the demographic changes with people living longer and longer? Interesting questions asked by Kairos Future and visualized through the following graph:

Average duration of different periods in life at different points in time (1920-2040). X-axis shows between which ages each period of life approximately runs and the periods (as explained in the top right corner) are, from the top: Childhood, Emancipation, Freedom years, Responsibility years and Old age.

So, to sum it up, an interesting read.

On a final note, I just loved the introduction of the report where they presented a number of the new names that people have started to give to the people living in this new active Third Age: Such as Silver surfers, Passionists, Passioners, SALLIES (Senior Affluent Life Lovers Enjoying a Second Spring), OPALS (Old People Active Lifestyle) and MAPPIES, (Mature Attractive Pioneers). Now that’s some granny! 😉

* For the curious: SEB, SPV, Micasa Fastigheter in Stockholm AB, Apotek Hjärtat, Pensionsmyndigheten and Friskis&Svettis.

Source (where you can also find the report for download (unfortunately only available in Swedish)): http://www.kairosfuture.com/publikationer/framtidens-%C3%A4ldre?pub=Framtidens-%C3%A4ldre

February 7, 2012

Old Ladies Rebellion – fashion brand for pensioners

26-year old French fashion designer, Fanny Karst, is the co-founder of Old Ladies Rebellion, a fashion brand for pensioners who dares to stand out. She wanted to revolutionize the stylish options available to women her grandmother’s age and offer them something else than cheesy suits and navy cardigans. The clothes are designed specifically to give older ladies fashion-forward shapes in a style that suits them, which involves a lot of hiding, shaping, and flattering. Fanny Karst believes that too often with age, women cease to dress pretty because they think they are looked over. Old Ladies Rebellion proves that you can be elegant and a little bit rock’n’roll at any age.

I certainly find this young designer with a degree in fashion print from Central St Martins School in London very bold to design clothes for women three times her age and to use models walking down the catwalk with crutches in an environment obsessed with youth and where you are considered old at 24.

Read below interview to find out why Fanny Karst thinks it is so great to design for older ladies and who she would dream of designing for.

http://vicestyle.com/en/news/today/post/visionaries-fanny-karst

Source: http://www.oldladiesrebellion.com/index.html