Boomsday – the silver tsunami – hits US shores
America’s first acknowledged baby boomer, Kathleen Casey-Kirschling, who turns 62 on 1 January , 2008, has just applied for her old age pension and is heralding the arrival of what US demographers are calling Boomsday or the ‘silver tsunami’.
A former teacher and nutritionist, Ms Casey-Kirschling is the eldest of the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964 and who argues that just as her peers defined the youth generation 40 years ago, baby boomers will change the way people look at ageing.
She said that “it’s just like when they had to build schools for us growing up and universities expanded, it’s the same now with financial planning and assisted living homes. Everything is still going to be for the baby boomer”.
Like Ms Casey-Kirschling taking her pension three years early, the boomers in the US feel no obligation to spend the rest of their years earning a living. She herself lost both parents to heart disease and has in recent times devoted her time to a regime of walking, cycling, tennis, and a restored wooden boat aptly named ‘First Boomer’.
William Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution, said that the US baby boomers had continued to define social peaks over time. “It was the case when they were out at Woodstock protesting, it was the case when they went to college. It was the case when they started buying their first homes, it was the case when they started going into the stock market in a big way.
“And it is going to be the case now whether they are going to some new age commune retirement community or taking up new hobbies. They are certainly going to be at the centre, just by virtue of their size,” Mr Frey said.
