This market assessment report from Key Note takes an in-depth look at the lives of those aged 50 and over. In particular, it looks at the behaviour and attitudes of this important demographic group in relation to: health, diet and appearance; home, work and finance; and leisure time and holidays. Adults aged 50+ made up 34% of the total UK population in 2007. Official forecasts indicate that the number of UK residents aged 45 and over will increase by 7.7% between 2008 and 2013, which means that the over-50s are an increasingly important group for companies to target.
Key findings:
A consumer survey commissioned by Key Note for this report found that health is a key issue for this age group, with more than a third (35.3%) of respondents agreeing that they worry `a lot' about their health. Appearance is also high on their list of priorities: 87.5% of respondents agreed that they take pride in their appearance and just under half (45.5%) of women said that they used anti-wrinkle creams. Around two-thirds (64%) of respondents were satisfied with the range of clothes offered by high-street retailers.
Looking after relatives is fairly common in this age group, with 22.6% of respondents having one or more of their children still living with them and 23.8% regularly spending time caring for older relatives. Only 13.5% of respondents paid someone to help with their household chores.
The importance of holidays to this age group is highlighted by the fact that 40.3% of respondents take more holidays and short breaks now than they did 10 years ago. However, very few respondents (9.8%) had been on a holiday organised by a company that specialises in travel for the over-50s.
The majority of respondents seem content with their quality of life, with more than half (58.7%) of those aged 50 and over agreeing that they are happier with their quality of life now than they were in their 20s and 30s.
This report is available to current London Business School staff, students and faculty from Key Note Online which can be found on the A-Z list of library databases within Portal.
Picture from Creative Commons: Flickr: Leo Reynolds
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