Older Women Stand-out

The Work Audit April 2012 report published by the CIPD with the title "Age, gender and jobs recession" reveals two "stand-out" groups. Firstly there are 271,000 more women aged between 50-64 in the labour market than at the start of the recession and secondly 200,000 more women aged 65 and over, actually in work.

Some of the reasons for this, the report claims, is a combination of population ageing and fewer workers retiring early either for financial reasons or a desire to prolong their working lives.

It would be good to attribute these changes also to the removal of retirement age in employment, increasing employer awareness of the skills and experience older workers can provide plus the workers themselves not writing themselves off too soon.

Clearly the so called "Madonna generation" still has a great deal to offer and a lot more besides!

Boomer women are the key demographic for the next decade

Bridget Brennan author of "What women want when they shop" is asked:

" Which of the trends in your trend chapter has strengthened the most since you first published the book, and which do you expect to be the most important in the next decade?"
Her reply:

"Boomers! Boomer women are the key demographic for the next decade. They are enormous in number, they have the largest amount of wealth in this country, and yet most advertisers and marketers don’t spend any time marketing to people over the age of 54.It’s a huge miss for firms that choose to ignore this segment".

Bras for 50+ Women

Underwear provider Playtex has just announced that it will be spending £1m on repositioning its underwear brand to women over the age of 50. They state that their research revealed that women over this age felt they were essentially "ignored", [a common finding in this age group]. The advertisements will feature a 42 year old model with the strapline " Feeling better than ever" and the approach is designed to appeal to women who are still "young at heart" and coping with a changing body shape.

Over the weekend the Guardian also ran a feature about films and the fact that stories never involve women aged over 50. A major cinema audience survey "reveals anger" at the film industry for perpetuating stereotypes.

It is good to see that these aspects are finally getting some airing but it seems incredible that it has taken so long for businesses such as Playtex to finally realise what a massive market the 50+ population is and how under-serviced their needs still are. The menopausal women is a good example of where age could help in targeting but there are many other life events triggering new needs for men and women in the following 4 decades of life which still need addressing. A huge opportunity for businesses to do something worthwhile and earn money.