Boomer Redux

In 1998, there were 3.7 million seniors in Canada; by 2031 there will be 9.7 million. That should tell us something and forewarn us at the same time. Twenty-five years from now, almost one-quarter of Canadians will fall into the “seniors” category. Much like the younger cohorts, seniors are increasingly favouring cities as the place to spend their final years. At present, 81% live in metropolitan areas.All that sounds fairly familiar ... until we consider what it means for those 35 and under. As seniors settle into cities, they organize through service clubs, veterans associations, and even special interest groups. They are powerful, connected, and above all have the resources to press their case at the various policy-making levels. In doing so they are reprogramming how cities will look in the near future - something with huge implications for the young.While Baby Boomers sell their traditional houses and move into less-troublesome condominiums, the prices for their homes lie well outside the reach for the average Gen Xer. Many like the idea of private communities, even gated ones, which takes them ever farther from the public space and the locations where younger generations are attempted to get on with their lives. To be sure, many Boomers struggle themselves in poverty, but as a cohort they have overall been a blessed generation.What this all means is that the Baby Boomers are primed to direct the future development of cities like London. And it’s pretty clear that after decades of hard work, they want to enjoy their remaining years through the pleasures of golf courses, nice restaurants, shaded walking paths, accessible transportation and fine arts - none of the things that will assist younger generations to find financial and social security.London is one community laden with Boomers who maintain a distinct interest in the youth of the city through alumni clubs, Rotary and Kinsmen youth services, and the commendable desire to fund sports teams and scholarships. But these are ancillary items compared to the institutional and financial challenges the younger generations are facing - high tuitions costs, lack of affordable housing, the inability to locate employment, lack of start-up assistance for their businesses ventures, and the need for an energetic and inspiring youth culture.Increasingly it appears as though more seniors are voting for those parties that promise to protect their investments as opposed to investing in a new tomorrow for the young. Ironically, the Boomers who once benefited from public institutions such as universal education and healthcare are opting for governments that continue to take funds out of the public space and deliver it, knowingly or unknowingly, into the hands of the wealthy elite.If you were someone aged, say, 28 years of age, what would you think of this new trend towards the Boomers? You would correctly reason that the future will look an awfully lot like the present, and you would be right. Franklin Roosevelt proclaimed in a speech: “We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future.”  Well, how does that work exactly? How do we build a younger generation when they can’t complete university or find a meaningful job? How are we teaching them independence and the importance of innovation when many of them are forced back home because of a lack of opportunity?How are Boomers helping them when they (and I am part of this cohort) desire to maintain lifestyles following retirement and so go back to working part-time in the workforce and taking jobs directly away from the younger set? So, Gen Xers and Millennials aren’t just facing stiff competition for employment from their peers but also from the Boomers that have already enjoyed a prosperous life.And then there is what is called the “boomerang effect” - the phenomenon of post-secondary graduates who can’t find employment in their preferred option and have to head back to school to get another degree in something that perhaps look more promising. All that training and effort for their first degree goes by the wayside as they have to gear-up for another career entirely. Economist Francis Fong puts it like this: ‘The whole process of trying to get where you wanted to be when you go out of university takes years longer than it used to. Taking a lower wage than you were initially expecting has significant repercussions for your long-term career ... A one percent rise in the unemployment rate leads to a six or seven percent decrease in salary. It can take anywhere from 10 to 15 years to close that gap of reduced wages. So your lifetime earnings are substantially lower, for the simple fact that you graduated at the wrong time.”One Gen Xer wrote to me this week on Twitter, wondering if I wasn’t pitting one generation against another, and was this helpful? It’s a good point. But isn’t the reality that we are presently going through this kind of generational dysfunction already and that few realize or acknowledge it from the Boomer generation. We have to know what the problem is before we undertake reform and there's a clear need to draw attention to this phenomenon. How do we begin? To whom shall we turn? That’s the subject of tomorrow’s final blog on this subject.