Life Begins when the Kids Leave Home and the Dog Dies - But that’s where the Family Life Cycle Ends

Abstract

In an effort to integrate the growing literature on the elderly with the Family Life Cycle concept, this paper makes two major points. The first is that persons over the traditional middle age designations are not homogeneous and some of those differences can be extended on the family life cycle model. The second is that children continue to influence the buying behaviors of the parental household even after they are no longer resident in it. An expanded family life cycle model and matrix to illustrate some of the job change issues associated with the retirement process are proposed.