ABSTRACT
On the 15th of October 2007 Kathleen Casey-Kirschling retired. This ordinary event sparked an extraordinary reaction. Her online application for social security benefits was attended by the Secretary of State and broadcast across the American media (https://abcnews.go.com). The reason for this level of interest is that Kathleen is officially recognized as the first American Baby Boomer. And she is not alone. Over the next twenty years it is estimated that she will be joined by a further 69 million of her co-boomers (Kotlikoff and Burns, 2005). Nor is this an exclusively American phenomenon. Although the baby booms in other countries, such as Great Britain, France, and Finland, occurred a little later than in the US, they too are all fast approaching retirement age. Interest in and speculation about how the retirement of these cohorts will affect government and society has emerged as one of the, if not the, major policy and academic debates of the past decades (Lloyd-Sherlock, 2002). However, these have principally focused on the perceived economic impact that this will have in terms of increased expenditure on healthcare and pensions. By contrast, relatively little has been written about how this might impact on other aspects of society and culture, such as education, tourism, or leisure pursuits. An emerging area of interest is the possible relationship between population ageing and consumerism.
