A Life-Course View on Ageing Consumers: Old-Age Trajectories and Gender Differences

Abstract

This study presents a dynamic, model-based view of consumers’ ageing developments, focused on gender differences, to uncover the pathways and socioeconomic transitions that female and male consumers take through old age. The analysis of longitudinal survey data spanning 15 years uses a latent Markov dynamic cluster model with transitions over time. The resulting life courses allow an exploration of lifestyle-related changes in multiple consumer well-being variables beyond age 50. Substantial well-being differences appear in the ageing paths of men and women. In both cases, a dominant chronological sequence through old age is complemented by less common transitions, rarely associated with advanced age. Although the model does not use chronological age as an independent variable, it outperforms purely agebased, or age- cohort-, and period-based models in predicting old-age consumer wellbeing. These results highlight the importance of considering within-cohort diversity when modelling the accompaniments of old age: while some older consumers enjoy active lifestyles, others of similar age succumb to depression and loneliness, rendering age an insufficient predictor of well-being states. In the future, the presented model could be matched with other, even cross-sectional, consumer survey data to help predict various dynamics in the ageing consumer population.