Podcast Center
Video Center
Webcasts
Resource Center
Events
August 09, 2011 at 08:00 PM
Not only has the U.S. hit a record number of grandparents, but those grandparents are so flush with cash that they financially support their children and grandchildren. That’s what a recent study by the MetLife Mature Market Institute found.
MetLife researchers along with noted demographer Peter Francese counted 65 million grandparents in 2010, up from 40 million in 1980. That means that one in four adults is a grandparent. Typically, today’s grandparents are working-age baby boomers between 45 and 64 years old.
Since most are working, many grandparents are able to give money to their financially strapped children and grandchildren. While real income for those aged 55 and over has increased, their offspring has witnessed a drop in that category.
“The number of multi-generational households has increased, due in part to the recession,” said Sandra Timmermann, Ed.D., director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute, in a release. “This trend, coupled with the increased financial instability of today’s younger families, has huge business implications. The fact that grandparents are spending a great deal of money on infant food and equipment, children’s clothing, toys, elementary and secondary school tuition, and financial, mortgage and insurance products, represents a change in buying habits and may change the way marketers and advertisers focus their efforts.”
