In his new book the director of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s AgeLab, Joseph F. Coughlin, says that it’s women who are 50 and older that will rule the world in the future.
The MIT researcher says that the world is underestimating the role of older women in the future.
“If you’re a woman with a bit of life experience, you already know you’re the boss,” a NBC News article on Coughlin’s book, “The Longevity Economy: Unlocking the World’s Fastest-Growing, Most Misunderstood Market,”said. “You’re more likely to drive health care decisions in your family, control household spending, care for millennials and elders, start a business and initiate a divorce. You have the longevity advantage over men.”
Coughlin’s book states that women over 50 will have more power than ever before in the future as we live longer.
“In other words, you rule,” the article states.
Coughlin told MarketWatch that “the future is distinctly female.”
“She lives longer, she is the primary caregiver and the chief consumption officer of the home, so if she doesn’t buy it or envision it, she frankly won’t be living in it and the country and family is missing a big opportunity on what she knows and what she likes and what she will buy,” he continued. “We find the venture capital community ignoring women — we have a vision of innovation as a 27-year-old male wearing sneakers.”
Coughlin says that women have been “marginalized” and “invisible.”
“Female consumers today have more education in all fields except engineering, and that’s worldwide. That makes her a dedicated researcher. Entrepreneurialism is a new women movement — women have startups employing Americans equal to large corporations,” he explains.
“And while she is doing all that, she remains the caregiver, not just to her own children but to her parents. She’s influencing the majority of auto decisions, she understands what the needs and wants are in the population. Women are starting companies about downsizing services to clean up houses and services to provide care in homes — they see the problems and the opportunities.”
For these reasons, and many more detailed in this book, Coughlin says that women over 50 will rule the world.
“One of the greatest under-appreciated sources of innovation and new business may in fact be women over 50 with new ideas, lots of life ahead of them and with the verve to get it done,” Coughlin told TODAY.
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