Boomer Women. Our Numbers Give Us Power.

By Karen and Erica

As of 2016, the last year for which a number is generally available, there were about 38.44 million Boomer women in the U.S. These women have wielded financial and political power for decades, and will soon have greater power than ever.

We will change the world again, just as we did fifty years ago.

Most people have no idea we’ve arrived.

Here are the facts:

• As a demographic, though not each individual, Boomers are wealthy:

Not only are Baby Boomers the wealthiest generation, holding 70% of the disposable income in the U.S. and spending over $548 billion a year, but they also they spend more than any other generation, across all categories. This includes spending the most per transaction.

• Boomers spend, but not just Boomers. People over 60 spend $4 trillion a year. Boomers drive over 50% of retail sales. Spending by people over 50 is expected to rise to $4.7 trillion over the next 20 years, and spending by people over 60 is expected to be one third of all spending in the U.S.

• If Boomers were our own economy we would rank as the third largest in the world.

• Boomer women have been exercising financial power for decades. We have long made decisions about all kinds of household purchases—Boomer women buy 65% of new cars, 91 percent of new homes and 92 percent of travel.

• Boomer women are getting wealthier.

Because women tend to outlive men, wealth will first be transferred to boomer wives in heterosexual marriages — and these transfers of wealth can be very significant, or even life-changing. According to a recent Ellevest survey of more than 2,000 affluent people across the U.S., 45% of women either had received or expected to receive a financial windfall, with the typical amount being around $300,000.

• Boomer women will soon control most of the $30 trillion in financial assets held by Boomers:

Roughly 70 percent of US affluent-household investable assets are currently in the hands of baby boomers, they conclude.   And that means that demographics can tell us a lot about who will control those funds in the future.  Two-thirds of baby-boomer assets are currently in households with both a man and a woman present, with financial decisions typically being made by the man in the relationship.  Women tend to be younger than the men they marry, and they tend to live about 6 years longer.  When the men pass on, control of those assets is ceded to their partners.  What that means, McKinsey argues, is that by 2030, American women are expected to control much of the $30 trillion in financial assets that the baby boomers possess, “a potential wealth transfer of such magnitude that it approaches the annual GDP of the United States,” as they put it.  

So what happens next? Just what happened before. Everything will change.

“For the first time in history, these baby boomer women are becoming the chief financial adviser to four generations,” [Angie O’Leary, head of Wealth Planning at RBC Wealth Management ]says. “Their influence is extremely powerful.”

And women’s financial impact on the world at large will be evident, as they often spend wealth differently than men, she says.

“Women are the primary philanthropic givers in the family, and we see that play out in unique ways when the surviving spouse is a woman,” O’Leary says. “Women are a little bit more in favor of socially responsible or environmental causes.”

All of us have always done it our way. It will be fascinating to see what we do next.

Baby Boomers are rule breakers. Individuality over conformity is a consistent Boomer pattern. They always have done it differently than the way it was done before

Boomers, and especially Boomer women, have been at the forefront of change since they grew up—and they probably will continue to exert profound influence.

Studies have shown that when baby boomers become involved in social issues or want to empower to initiate change, they tend to resort to single-cause issues that arise from deep passions. Unlike their parents, baby boomers tend not to organize around their own self interests. They are driven by passion and uncivic engagement. Boomers are a generation that questions social justice, and will continue to do so as they march into their golden years. We continue to empower others, and this becomes contagious from one woman to another and from generation to generation. The way I see it, we will do this until death do us part. As Joan Baez sang at Woodstock, “We shall overcome.”

It will also be fascinating to see if anyone interested in sales, or politics, or philanthropy, or art, or anything else, takes notice. Surveys quite uniformly show that most of us feel everyone is ignoring us, picturing us as needy and greedy, suggesting we relying on everyone else for everything, hiding us behind images of women who have fallen and can’t get up, or smiling dimly next to husbands who are arranging our finances.

That means we have the advantage of surprise. When we flex our muscles, people will think a legion of Wonder Women has arrived.

So here’s what to do. Whenever you are in situation where someone is supposed to acknowledge you and enter into a transaction fo some sort with you (a bank, a bar, a jeweler), and you are not being seen, or not being treated like a sentient being, walk awayt. Then send a note to the manager explaIning why you did not:

• purchase that huge diamond or

• deposit billions in his bank or

• sit elegantly at his bar.

They’ll soon see us, and they will wish that had done so earlier!

Watch out, world! We’re here!