The boomers are dying! The boomers are dying!

The boomers are turning their considerable attention to dying. And since they do everything on a big scale, this must be significant. So, what are they discovering, or reinventing, about this ancient custom?

Well, just when many of the leading-edge boomers were moving quietly into the second half of life (having graduated from the first half and all its ego-driven interests), they’re surprised to see themselves back in the news.

Headlines tell us that “1,000 a day” are dying. And while this ratio is not out of line with the boomers’ population, it is a big number (and big numbers are really the essence of the boomer saga). What is mildly interesting, though, is the way in which they’re dying. Apparently, only 24% have died of natural causes – which leaves the other 76% of boomers with a lot of explaining to do.

One explanation making the rounds is that one out of every two drug overdoses is a boomer (even though boomers are only 26% of the population). And while that may be a good headline, the actual number of boomers deaths in this category is about 15,000. Sad, certainly, but hardly an epidemic.

Another popular explanation is the motorcycle theory: As boomers age, they return to riding motorcycles and, because they’re old (read: slower reactions), they crash and die more. Well, since a motorcyclist has a 37% greater chance of an accident, and because boomers constitute two-thirds of all riders, you can understand why they are most of the fatalities. Still, the highways aren’t exactly littered with these fallen road warriors.

So why has all this imminent death brought the boomers back into the spotlight? Well, let’s look at this from a different perspective — from that of a funeral director’s. Suddenly, the boomers are a big business again.

Largely because of better nutrition and better medicine, the funeral industry has seen its business shrink to 8.1 deaths per 1,000 Americans. That amounts to an $11 billion dollar enterprise, but projections have the boomers raising the bar to almost 11 deaths per 1,000 in the next few years.

One thing you have to concede about the boomers: whatever they do and however they do it, they’re always good for business.

Mike Baumayr, Chapter Two Communications

Mature marketing expertise from one of America’s “oldest” authorities on boomers, retirement, aging, longevity, and inter-generational marketing.