Rethinking the Aging Asian Market

[HenryTo]

From a new study done by Mastercard. The question now is: Will boomers continue to hold and even buy more stocks to support their longer living spans and continued spending as they age? This question will most probably depend on when they "retire," but the word "retirement" is just so not fashionable nowadays.
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Friday October 13, 12:24 PM

Asia's aging consumers set to glitter-MasterCard
HONG KONG, Oct 13 (Reuters) - Asia's aging population is set to change the dynamics of the consumer market over the next decade as spending by increasingly active elderly consumers is growing by an average 5.9 percent a year, says MasterCard.

MasterCard estimates spending by elderly households in affluent Asia -- Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Australia -- totalled US$868.2 billion in 2005 and will reach US$1.5 trillion in 2015. "We have to redefine who the elderly are," Yuwa Hedrick-Wong, economic adviser to MasterCard Asia/Pacific and author of a new book entitled "The Glittering Silver Market", said on Friday.

"The old paradigm is that the elderly were passive consumers. The new paradigm is that there are very, very active consumers living to their 80s and 90s."

In Japan, which has the second oldest population in the world after Italy and where 19 percent of its population is aged 65 or above, the over-60s spend 1.4 times more on sports facility membership than those below 60, Hedrick-Wong said.

In South Korea, a rising number of elderly people are enrolling in part-time and full-time university courses and are creating demand for custom-built condominiums in downtown areas, whereas 10 years ago they would have tended to move back to the countryside, he said.

Average life expectancy in Japan is 82, one of the highest in the world, and 71 in China and companies need to adapt to increasingly healthy and active older people, Hedrick-Wong said.
MasterCard estimates that manufacturing workers reach peak productivity at 45-55 years, while knowledge workers peak at 55-65.

"To retire knowledge workers at 65 is absurd," said Hedrick-Wong. "We must rethink our retirement system. The challenge is to create a very flexible system to tap into the resources of older people."

Japan had made some progress on this in the past few years, keeping on talented staff as mentors on a part-time basis after retirement, he said.

[rffrydr]

Yeah, try the Thai place at the Oceanside marine base. Complete with pink flourescents and mini-redlight district.

I don't know if they're all any good, but I'm now convinced there is no city on the planet without a chinese restaurant!

Chinese is easy, but if you want Chinese with sesame bread baked in the shape of chinese money and mutton-tail soup with handmade noodles try the old Islamic exile's place on Garvey and Del Mar right off the 10 fwy there in LA. Don't let the headscarves and 4x5foot gleaming photos of Mecca scare you away because the food will bring you back.

[nodoodahs]

[HenryTo]

I wouldn't mind moving to an interior state as long as the food is great (you can only get good Chinese food in probably seven or eight major cities in the U.S. today), the business laws are great, and MarketThoughts.com ramp up to an extent where I can focus on it on a full-time basis.

Best,
Henry

[rffrydr]

The word, "retirement" if not the reality will probably become an anchronism. Many things will drive this shift, first among them, necessity.

Meanwhile back on the homefront so many more of us are being driven more and more apart.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116070539099291514.html?mod=hpp_us_editors_picks

Blade Runner here we come.