What Retirees Want: A Holistic View of Life's Third Age

by Ken Dychtwald, Robert Morison

Understand how to reach the biggest market hiding in plain sight

The business world is hyper-focused on getting into the minds of Millennials and Gen Z'ers. But when it comes to Baby Boomers, who now hold the largest concentration of personal wealth and spending power of any generation in history, prejudice, ageism, and misunderstanding abound. Business leaders, advisors, government leaders, and marketers have only a superficial understanding of Boomers' hopes, fears, preferences, and dreams.

What Retirees Want is the definitive guide to understanding the needs, aspirations, and dreams of today and tomorrow's retirees, so your business can grow by serving them better. They're a segment you don't want to miss--especially because your competitors are probably ignoring them. Leaping forward from the prophetic ideas in Dychtwald's Age Wave and based on 70,000 hours of new research and 30+ years of global leadership on this subject, this book offers expert guidance on how you can grab their attention in a way that's meaningful to them--and helps your business grow.

Learn how to avoid typical mistakes like talking down, using the wrong marketing messages, or creating niche products that don't satisfy retirees' need for empowerment and growth--or isolate them from feeling connected to younger generations.

Ken Dychtwald is America's foremost thought leader on issues relating to aging and longevity and the profound business, social, healthcare, financial, workforce and cultural implications of the retirement wave. He and Robert Morison have been collaborating for two decades, including on their groundbreaking book Workforce Crisis and their McKinsey Prize-winning writing in the Harvard Business Review. This book summarizes decades of research and consulting to leading companies on what new generations of retirees want worldwide.

Stop ignoring the largest and wealthiest market hidden in plain sight Navigating the new retirement landscape; work, giving, leisure, family, and legacy Time affluence: four trillion hours to fill Satisfying Boomers' quest for the fountain of health Understand retirees as customers, workers, and volunteers The breakthrough products and services that will meet their needs

Genres: Aging, Audiobook, Nonfiction

320 pages, Hardcover

Published July 15, 2020

Reviews

[CJ]

Overall this is yet another self-indulgent baby boomer book preaching about the great accomplishments of this generation and how they will "make old age great again." It has many tired cliches about how boomers are about to "redefine retirement," somehow ignoring how boomers are already in their 70s and retirement has not been improved by this generation in any noticeable way. The book never quite figures out if it is a retirement guidebook or a handbook for companies looking to profit off old people, creating a confused narrative that is also overly simplistic and a little too smug.

[Karen]

This book contains lots of graphs and surveys about the thinking of retirees and others toward aging and how to approach it. Mainly I think it reminds the reader that planning and thinking about aging is necessary as retirement is approached or entered.

[Burns Cheadle]

3.5 stars: an interesting exploration of various impacts of the extended longevity and radical expectations of the Boomer generation. It was not exactly the book I was hoping for because that would offer more guidance to relatively new retirees like me who are looking for tools and guidance to make the most out of their "third age". Much of this book, however, seemed to promote a message of the perils of ignoring the demographic shift in marketing design, or perpetuating outdated ageist biases in staff retention and development. Still, there are quite a few gems in this book for those who are interested in the subject. I am certain that there is also much here that will enrage some members of the post-Boomer generations who rightly feel that they have been denied many of the social and economic benefits awarded to our "modern elders" (affordable housing and financial security come to mind).

[John]

There was very little here that was really new to me. I did like the earlier chapters more than the later ones. There was a lot there to think about, especially for churches that want to rethink marketing and outreach. But much of the rest was the relation of some statistics, mostly about what elder people think or have, and then projecting some trends on that basis. There was some attempt to address the opportunities and responsibilities that elders have with respect to life experience, wisdom, and leisure time for volunteerism. This is the sort of book that everyone ought to read before they are fifty, and then take some key lessons from that in terms of planning and thinking about being an elder.

[Joan Fung-Tomc]

A very informative book. Many striking data that makes one think. For example:
- US average retirement age: in 1900 - 76 yr old / in 2020 - 65 yr old
- US life expectancy: in 1940 - 63.6 yrs / in 2016 - 78.8 yr
- US ratio of workers to Social Security recipients: - in 1940 - 40 to 1 / in 2016 - 2.8 to 1
- US number of Social Security recipients: - in 1940 - 222,488 / in 2016 - 60,907,000
- US average annual Social Security payout: - in 1940 - $220 / in 2016 - $16,320
- % US federal budget for Social Security: - in 1940 - 0.03% / in 2016 - 24%

[Kristin]

I received free access to this book through work. It is definitely an academic book, with lots of interesting and insightful research data underpinning the narrative. Although the research data does encompass all generations, the main focus is squarely on the Boomers - not surprising but still a bit disappointing as a Gen Xer. As a personal finance nerd, I found it compelling enough to read, but I would definitely not recommend it for the casual reader.

[Rob]

I mistakenly picked this up thinking it was about retirement. There is some information about retirees; however, the book is manly about the wonderful marketing opportunity that retirees (aka "Boomers") are. The author's enthusiasm for how different this generation is from previous ones may be overblown a bit but it is worth considering. As much as I like to label generations (speaking as one who read the Fourth Turning when it came out) it can be over done.

[Tammy]

So much of planning for retirement focuses on the financial, but there are the mental, emotional and even physical aspects to consider. This book focuses on all of the above and is what I have needed for the transition. My biggest takeaway from this book is the importance of 1) having a positive outlook on aging, 2) staying socially connected, and 3) finding a new purpose to replace the one that work provided.

[Ted Rusinoff]

Great review of our world view around retirement and how it will affect us in every generation. There is a particularly great discussion around Ageism and how it impacts our society values and behaviors.

[Lisa]

2.5

[Pasquale A. Castaldo]

What a great book! I just retired and this is just what I needed to confirm I am doing OK but have some further opportunities. Now I have started Ken's latest book about his life called Radical Curiosity and am loving it so far!