Lina Ko June 20th, 2007
According to the latest issue of The Economist, by 2020 over half of Britain’s millionaires may be female. In April this year, 92 females graced the Sunday Times Rich List, an annual round-up of Britain’s 1,000 wealthiest people. A decade ago there were 64. Over the last 10 years, the average worth of female millionaires has grown by more than half. The Centre for Economics and Business Research reckons female millionaires will outnumber male ones by 2020, and by 2025, women will control 60% of Britain’s private wealth. Girl power seems to be thriving? Not so soon!
Is the increasing number of affluent women a result of the usual sources – marriage, inheritance and divorce – or do women now derive their riches from personal earnings or success from their own businesses? Philip Beresford, who compiles the Rich List in Britain, dismisses the idea that women are breaking into its ranks independently of men. A glance at the number of women in the top ranks of business confirms his belief. Women make up only a tenth of the directors of the FTSE-100 firms. They are also under-represented in the upper echelons of management. In fact, according to a recent report compiled by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the number of female senior managers in FTSE-350 firms had fallen by 40% since 2002.
If there is indeed a glass ceiling at the top, women at the bottom find the going even tougher. Although the gap between men’s and women’s earnings has shrunk for those at all income levels in most developed countries around the world, men still dominate highly-paid work, and the proportion of female graduates in low-level jobs has rocketed in the past decade.
Closer to home, the numbers are not any better. According to Women On Board, a new organization created to match promising female executives with some of Canada’s most powerful senior businesspeople, the percentage of female directors on the boards of Canada’s 300 largest companies has hovered at only about eight per cent for more than a decade.
Perhaps successful women baby boomers in business should contribute to narrowing the equality gap between the sexes by mentoring their younger counterparts and playing a major role in organizations such as Women On Board, Catalyst and Women’s Future Fund?
Lina Ko June 15th, 2007
We generally admire fast talkers because we think they are smart. Some good examples are news personalities such as Anderson Cooper and George Stroumboulopoulos. However, fast speech, like fine print, is easy to ignore. Everyone is talking so quickly that they can’t catch their breath. Experts are blaming the media as TV focus groups reveal that viewers think fast talkers are smarter and funnier.
However, talking fast is a looming headache for an aging society. What’s the use of talking fast if people have trouble listening and understanding? I have been a notoriously fast talker since my adult years not because I’m smarter, but more because I’m impatient. Only recently did I try to slow down. A few of my trailing-edge boomer friends are starting to lose their hearing - to communicate with them in an effective way, I have been forcing myself to talk more slowly.
Vain boomers will often deny that their eyesight and hearing are weakening – hence the popularity of bi-focal contact lenses and the reluctance to put on hearing aids! Retailers and restaurateurs who want to attract boomer customers should perhaps consider printing menus in bigger fonts and turning down the volume of the music.
Lina Ko June 11th, 2007
Boomers are taking their aging years into consideration when designing their homes. A growing number of baby boomers are building elder-friendly features into their homes, and are putting their master bedroom, laundry room and primary bathroom on the wheelchair-accessible first floor. These boomers are not disabled; in fact, they are in perfect health. They are planning ahead to minimize future accessibility problems, they do not want to worry about getting around in a walker or wheelchair.
According to a recent survey of North American architecture firms, accessibility is the fastest-growing trend in home design. Accessibility is in, but it has to be chic. Features popular with the 50-to-65 crowd include lever door handles rather than knobs that are hard for arthritis hands to turn; cork floors that are easier on the joints than hardwood; easy-access tubs and showers, and kitchen counters low enough to sit down while chopping vegetables.
Everything has to blend in with the home’s look. Even a fancy new bath tub with grab bars can be colour-coordinated to the bathroom’s decor. In high-end private homes, elevators are a particularly hot trend. Elegantly, wood-panelled doors make them look like just another room off a hallway.
Retirement homes are also preparing for the boomer wave by considering form as well as function. Boomers who give up their homes to move to a condo or retirement centre don’t want to abandon their sense of style and more retirement homes are having the look and feel like condos. Accessibility and style can certainly co-exist in real estate properties catering to boomers.
Lina Ko June 8th, 2007
According to a recent survey of more than 2,100 employees conducted by Monster.ca, about half of Canada’s younger workers find the boomers a pain to work with. Apparently, the boomers’ hard-core, super-motivated, do-or-die work ethic is scorned by the Gen-Xers (born between 1965 and 1980) and the Gen-Ys (born after 1980). This implies that we sometimes see a clash of attitudes, ehtics, values and behaviours that can result in misunderstandings and potential conflict.
The boomers’ idea of what constitutes a strong work ethic also clashes with younger generations, who do not buy into the concept that you are only working hard if you are seen putting in long hours at the office, according to the survey. Younger generations of employees seem to place a greater value on work-life balance and believe their performance should be judged on results, not time spent.
Harmony in the workplace is always difficult to achieve, particularly as diverse generations cross paths on the job. The phasing out of mandatory retirement means that boomers will be sticking around the workplace a lot longer. I’ve often heard management staff of my generation lament on how younger generations do not share the same work ethics and values as we do. Perhaps it’s time for us boomers to accept the reality that with a multi-generational work force, we need to better understand what motivates younger generations to create intra-office synergy?
Lina Ko June 5th, 2007
I read with interest over the weekend in the Globe and Mail that Canada’s baby boomers’ make-love-not-war movement during their teenage years about four decades ago actually resulted in the country becoming more peaceful, tolerant and rights-conscious now.
According to the University of Victoria’s historian Dominique Clement, today’s human rights legislation and institutions can be traced directly back to the demands by young people in the 60’s and 70’s for a Canada that would be more caring and sensitive toward their fellow citizens: the poor, the disadvantaged, homosexuals and racial minorities.
It’s gratifying to hear that Canada’s boomers have made a difference – they changed the times and didn’t just make a lot of noise and then fade into middle age. As Mr. Clement said, they were the catalysts of a transformation in social movement and among the leading participants in this new era of social activism.
I’m sure baby boomers didn’t participate in protest marches, sit-ins and demonstrations in the 60’s with the goal of seeing a changed world in their middle age – they expected changes to happen immediately, there and then. But to know that Canada now is a better country than 40 years ago just shows that social movements need time and patience – we still have a long way to go when blacks, aboriginals, gays and lesbians can truly feel the equality they deserve. Maybe now is the time for baby boomers to pass their torches to the younger generation and share their social movement experiences of the 60’s?
Lina Ko June 1st, 2007
There’s a lot of buzz in the marketplace about the recent launch of LavalifePrime.com – an online dating service targeting single baby boomers. I think this is a smart move since boomers are constantly reinventing themselves and are not constrained by age limits in venturing into non-traditional vacations or relationships. It’s been reported in the Globe and Mail that the baby boomer segment has grown by more than 340 per cent since 2000 and about one-third of 85 million boomers in North America are single. In Canada, according to a study by Environics Research, it’s not just young people who are active Internet users; aging boomers are also spending more time on the Internet and blogging.
Unlike other online dating services, LavalifePrime.com is not designed for boomers just thinking about marriage or sex. Many of the boomers have a ‘been there, done that’ attitude and could be signing up for options such as ‘having kids’ and ‘empty nest’ as a topic of discussion and searching for ‘activity partners’ to accompany them to the theatre or on hiking trips. Boomers can also post photos and video clips on a ‘life experiences’ board, where older boomers brag about the birth of their grandchildren and share images of themselves sailing or travelling.
For those lonely boomers who are now at a lifestage where they know themselves better and are facing divorces and separations, it sounds like this new online dating service might be a good social networking medium if not a matchmaker for romance.