Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
As the director of the MIT AgeLab, Joseph Coughlin has studied trends in demographics and technology and spearheaded research and innovation to improve the quality of life for older people and those who care for them. Now, in The Longevity Economy, he uses this expertise to break new ground in understanding this market, which composes an ever-increasing share of the total population.
While companies see the size and wealth of this market, they all too often use outdated narratives to figure out what this demographic really wants. Coughlin debunks conventional wisdom and provides the framing needed to be in sync with this influential and lucrative market. He uses fascinating examples from a wide variety of sectors, from financial services to housing, health care, consumer products, and personal relationships. He showcases the work of companies like PillPack, an online pharmacy that delivers presorted medicine to your home; OXO, which makes ergonomic utensils; and edX, an online learning platform that makes it easy for older people to learn from home.
Coughlin's insights will help businesses connect with older consumers, who continue to defy expectations, contribute to economic growth, and build a better, enduring vision of old age.
Synopsis
Oldness a social construct at odds with reality that constrains how we live after middle age and stifles business thinking on how to best serve a group of consumers, workers, and innovators that is growing larger and wealthier with every passing day. Over the past two decades, Joseph F. Coughlin has been busting myths about aging with groundbreaking multidisciplinary research into what older people actually want -- not what conventional wisdom suggests they need. In The Longevity Economy, Coughlin provides the framing and insight business leaders need to serve the growing older market: a vast, diverse group of consumers representing every possible level of health and wealth, worth about $8 trillion in the United States alone and climbing.
Coughlin provides deep insight into a population that consistently defies expectations: people who, through their continued personal and professional ambition, desire for experience, and quest for self-actualization, are building a striking, unheralded vision of longer life that very few in business fully understand. His focus on women -- they outnumber men, control household spending and finances, and are leading the charge toward tomorrow's creative new narrative of later life -- is especially illuminating.
Coughlin pinpoints the gap between myth and reality and then shows businesses how to bridge it. As the demographics of global aging transform and accelerate, it is now critical to build a new understanding of the shifting physiological, cognitive, social, family, and psychological realities of the longevity economy.