Published February 9, 2026 in Future readiness • 9 min read • 
Audio available
The human race is living and working longer in good health, and with energy, ambition, and agency. By 2050, the number of people aged 60 and above will exceed two billion, transforming every company and nation on earth. For business, longevity is not just another HR issue or DE&I box to tick – it’s the biggest demographic disruptor of the century. Longer lives are reshaping careers, consumption, and entire economies. As retirement thresholds rise, we are experiencing a new kind of generational balance at work.
Japan led the way, but in many other nations, 40% of the population is now over the age of 50. As a leader, are you ready? Are you preparing your talent, markets, leadership style, and business model for 100-year lifespans? Here are five steps to get you underway:
We are experiencing the largest demographic transformation in over a century. A CEO wouldn’t dream of ignoring climate change or AI disruption. Longevity belongs in the same strategic category. Data is the starting point. If you don’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Too many companies don’t even know the age profile of their workforce or their customers. Do you?
Look at your numbers:
If you don’t know, you’re running your business half-blind. Smart organizations are starting to incorporate longevity KPIs into their dashboards. They’re mapping their workforce by age, tracking engagement, and learning investment across cohorts, segmenting customers beyond the youth market, and assessing where the growth really lies. (Spoiler: it’s increasingly in your 50+ customers and your Q3 talent.) Here are some examples:
The next step is to learn the language of longevity – it’s about all of us, not just “old people”. We’re all living and working longer, affecting careers, families, finances, health, and consumption patterns. Leaders need to become fluent in what this means for their organizations. This is not an HR project; it’s about your competitive positioning for the next decade. If you understand your demographic future, you can see where to invest, innovate, and lead. If you don’t, you risk being left behind by competitors who do.
Ask yourself:
The sectors most affected in the short term include health, wealth, housing, and education.
Indeed, most sectors are being hit by a triple whammy of aging talent, consumers, and societies. A longevity lens needs to focus on everything from product design to market strategy, from recruitment to training, and from health benefits to flexible career models. And seeing the opportunity in the transformation.
We need a new way of talking about age and work. The old, ageist lexicon doesn’t fit our new reality. Too many organizations still talk about early career, mid-career, and retirement. It’s a 20th-century model that no longer applies. Instead, I talk about the four quarters of life:
Most companies have focused almost exclusively on Q2, but Q3 is emerging as the pivotal stage. We need a new cultural lexicon to shift attitudes and help capture the value of Q3 and Q4. The 50- and 60-somethings are the most experienced, the most loyal, and often the most capable. They also hold a disproportionate share of purchasing power, yet too often they are ignored, sidelined, or written off.
Leaders need to ask:
For decades, marketing has been obsessed with youth. Bright young things. Fresh starts. Future growth. But look at the numbers: 50+ is the world’s fastest-growing consumer segment. They own most of the wealth, and are healthier, more active, and more ambitious than any previous generation at their age.
The over-50s account for half of global consumer spending, and this is expected to rise to nearly 60% by 2050. In the US alone, they hold close to 80% of stock market wealth and over 70% of housing wealth, making them the third-largest economy in the world, if counted as a nation. They are healthier than any previous generation at their age, with global healthy life expectancy rising by more than five years since 2000. They are also more active and ambitious – 64% of 55- to 64-year-olds across the OECD are still working, and over one in five new entrepreneurs in the US are now in this age group.
So why are they so often invisible in marketing campaigns? Only a fraction of advertising budgets is directed toward the over-50s. When older adults do appear, they are too often shown through outdated or patronizing stereotypes.
AARP’s research highlights progress – negative portrayals in media have dropped significantly over the past five years – but two-thirds of consumers over 50 still feel misrepresented. Industry regulators have even called out advertisers for offensive depictions of people in later life. The disconnect is stark: marketing continues to chase youth while ignoring the group with the greatest disposable income, growing longevity, and rising participation in work, travel, and entrepreneurship. Companies that close this gap have the chance not only to access a massive, underserved market but to reshape cultural narratives about what it means to age today.
The winners of the longevity economy will be the companies that see their Q3 and Q4 customers for who they are: savvy, aspirational, experienced, and with decades of life ahead of them, along with an overwhelming share of the purchasing power.
Ask yourself:
Insurers are moving fast with Fidelidade and its peers reframing longevity as a growth market, not just a risk pool. The travel industry is discovering that big spenders are aged 50 and above and is adapting adventures to suit every age group. The health sector is surging: preventive health diagnostics (NEKO Health), women’s midlife medicines (Theramex), and hearing-health innovators (Eargym) are targeting prevention and quality of life. The housing and educational sectors are reinventing retirement. For example, Arizona State University’s Mirabella at ASU blends university life with purposeful living, while universities worldwide are launching midlife transition programs. Finally, customer engagement is maturing; sales and marketing company Senior Response specializes in over-50 client contact, signaling a service layer forming around the 50+ economy.
For the first time in history, five generations are in the workforce. Yet most companies still use a 20th-century model: careers as linear ladders, climbing upwards until they stop abruptly at “retirement”.
That model no longer works. Longer lives demand longer, more flexible careers. People will work across multiple decades, with multiple careers, and multiple transitions. They will want sideways moves, sabbaticals, reinvention, and “encore” roles. They won’t like or accept falling off a cliff at 60 or 65 years old.
The organizations that thrive will be those that design multi-stage, non-linear careers. Those who have already rethought gender equity are ahead as they’ve learned to challenge rigid models and build flexibility. The same thinking now needs to apply to age.
Ask yourself:
L’Oréal’s For All Generations initiative embeds generational balance into its talent strategy. The company fosters collaboration across generations, proactively combats stereotyping, provides digital skills training, and supports employees through pre-retirement and alumni programs, turning longevity into an asset for innovation and growth.
In the 21st century, we have been given an extraordinary gift: decades of additional life. What will we do with it? As leaders, we can waste these bonus years by clinging to outmoded models, or we can embrace them, rethinking work, markets, and leadership for a longer-lived world.
Faced with falling mail volumes and a rapidly aging population, La Poste, the French postal service, reframed aging from a social risk into a strategic market – baking longevity into its La Poste 2030 plan. They invested in:
Demographics forecast an increase in older customers in every region of France. In response, La Poste is leveraging its unrivalled last-mile network and trust to own the “aging-at-home” interface, diversifying revenue while advancing social inclusion. Competitors without this lens risk ceding the silver-economy value chain to incumbents that do.
Takeaway: Read your demographic future, then redesign assets (people, property, routes, and brand trust) to meet it. That’s competitive positioning for the next decade.
According to the 2025 Future Readiness Indicator, companies that move fast and build efficient ecosystems have the best chance of success. Howard Yu and his team analyze the data ...
Audio available
The biggest risk isn’t that AI under‑delivers. It’s that organizations overreact or underreact. Here we unpack the four zones of AI readiness and explain why building sandboxes is the best way forward....
Audio available
The Swiss-based energy group is plotting a course toward a renewables-focused future, without abandoning its traditional customer base. Here we explore five key principles that have underpinned the company’s success....
Audio available
One year after launch, AI risk tracker underlines worrying implications of accelerating AI adoption....
Explore first person business intelligence from top minds curated for a global executive audience