NEWSWIRE: 6/4/18

  • Cities across the globe are investing in a new youthful attraction: the ball pit bar. The extreme mildness of Millennials has ushered in tame nightlife hotspots that more closely resemble a Chuck E. Cheese’s than the seedy Xer hangouts of yesteryear. (Cassandra Report)
    • NH: How to sum up the generational shift? These new clubs are brighter, more social, more playful, and more attractive to groups. The trend toward more "kid-like" fun--call this a progression or a regression to suit your taste--is most visible in the amazing popularity of Museum of Ice Cream (motto: "we lead with the honest belief that ice cream has the power to change the world and anything is possible"). Bar crawls and cruising for the opposite sex are so old-fashioned. Try juice crawls, or just throwing yourself into a swimming pool full of colored tennis balls. Sure, if you must, you can still take your glass of Prosecco with you.
  • Following the cancellation of the Roseanne reboot over an offensive tweet, columnist John Jurgenson writes that TV comedies have become the latest victim of America’s ongoing Culture Wars. In today’s age of heightened political correctness and unprecedented access to celebrities, a controversial opinion is often all it takes to take down a show. (The Wall Street Journal)
    • NH: Roseanne Barr compels commentators to side either with the politically correct or the tastelessly vulgar. Since Barr made a big deal about voting for Trump, the media interprets this divide as just one more front in the partisan war between Democrats and Republicans. Yet that's not accurate. Barr exposes, even better than Trump, how rising populism has opened a whole new divide which cuts across party lines. For better or worse, she has always backed the anti-elites. For most of her career, in fact, her political agenda has been pretty similar to left-wing Berniacs: She has campaigned for unions, a minimum wage, single-payer health care, and higher taxes--and against the Pentagon and banks. See her 2012 presidential "campaign platform"--or this 2011 sitcom sample. In her platform, incredibly, Barr deplores "racial or any other type of profiling." Whatever Barr's personal future in television, the stellar ratings of her encore sitcom will surely encourage imitators. It has already helped revive (on Fox) Tim Allen's Last Man Standing (cancelled last year by ABC).
  • According to eHarmony, today’s married 25- to 34-year-old couples knew each other for an average of six and a half years before tying the knot—the longest of any age group. This meshes with everything we know about Millennials, who are willing to wait a little longer to walk down the aisle compared to previous generations. (eHarmony)
    • NH: First-wave Boomers regarded marriage as a "cornerstone" event: Get married first, and then worry about everything else (college, career, home, in-laws) later. Millennials have come to see marriage as a "capstone" event: Get all the serious preparation done first before getting married. This attitude--prompted by taking marriage more seriously, not less--is clearly pushing up the average age of first marriage, pushing down the divorce rate, and expanding the share of kids born to nonmarried parents. It has also inverted the traditional correlation between less education and earlier marriage: Today, Millennials with college degrees at age 30 are more likely to be married than those without.
  • Commercial property investors are doubling down on the health-care real estate sector in anticipation of aging Boomers. While medical and senior-living facilities will certainly be in demand in the coming years, Boomers are going to want to age in place for as long as they can, which could accelerate the growth in home health care and telemedicine. (The Wall Street Journal)
    • NH: Sure, the demand for these facilities will grow by dint of sheer numbers filling the 75+ age brackets over the next decade. But demand growth may not match per-capita growth, especially in senior structures like long-term care and large-scale active-adult communities (which most Boomers will not find attractive at any age).
  • Journalist Justin Fox contends that ending China’s one-child policy won’t bring about a baby boom. As is the case elsewhere in Asia, fertility in China has been declining since before the introduction of the one-child policy in 1979. (Bloomberg Business)
    • NH: Actually, it has long been common knowledge among demographers that, at least since the mid-90s, China's one-child policy has had little to do with its low fertility rate. This has since been pretty much confirmed after China's recent loosening of that policy: Births rose in 2016, but then fell back again in 2017. According to China's own official data, the country's working-age population began shrinking in 2014. According to U.N. data, it is starting to shrink this year.
  • A record-high 4.5% of the U.S. population now self-identifies as LGBT, with the recent increase driven almost exclusively by Millennials. The inclusivity and openness of today’s young adults has drastically eroded the stigma of coming out as LGBT. (Gallup)
    • NH: Yes, erosion of society-wide stigma is part of the story. But this doesn't explain why the rise has happened so exclusively among Millennials. While Gallup doesn't provide any data cross-tabs, one clue is that the rise is also disproportionately among women. Bisexuality is the largest LGBT category, and women dominate this category. It has also long been known (in the words of one researcher) that "women's sexuality may be more flexible and adaptive than men's." Possible inference: Professed bisexuality among young women is driving the Millennial rise. (Interestingly, professed bisexual women are most likely to be in long-term heterosexual relationships and are least likely to be "out" about their status.) Other possible surprises in the Gallup data: LGBT status declines with income and is highest for Latinos, lowest for whites.
  • Procter & Gamble now lists detailed ingredient information for as many as 3,500 products on a trade website, SmartLabel.org. This is a smart move: Transparency is a priority for today’s health-conscious shoppers, and the more information, the better. (MediaPost)
  • Fully 52% of British 18- to 24-year-olds say social media is a consideration in choosing a travel destination. When they do splurge on a getaway, Millennials often adhere to an “ego travel” playbook by considering what will look good on Instagram and Snapchat.  (Thomas Cook)
  • One in four 24- to 36-year-olds still live with their mother. With housing prices outpacing wages and student-loan debt on the rise, it’s hardly a surprise that many Millennials are staying in the nest until their prospects improve. (Zillow)
    • NH: I've been saying for years that the return of multigenerational living is not just an economic story (with privation forcing young adults to live with their parents), but a generational story featuring much closer emotional ties between Boomer parents and their first-wave Millennial kids. As the Great Recession recedes ever further into our rear-view mirror--and as extended-family co-living continues to rise--my interpretation looks ever-more persuasive. The Zillow interactive chart (the data come from the U.S. Census Bureau via IPUMS-USA) show rising rates of co-living through 2016 in just about every U.S. city, even those with record-low unemployment rates and very affordable housing.
  • Land Rover’s Start-Off Road program aims to give kids and teens hands-on exposure to cars. Given young Americans’ ambivalence toward car culture, such attempts to drum up enthusiasm may be increasingly necessary. (MediaPost)

          DID YOU KNOW?

          Seniors Just Want to Have Fun. Behavioral psychologists have long touted the benefits of play on child development. But now, these experts have turned their attention to a new audience: the elderly. Consultant Ken Dychtwald sees a huge potential market in services that help seniors live more fulfilling lives. He reasons that older adults may need to relearn how to have fun after a lifetime spent at the office. Dychtwald tries to live by his own advice: He and his wife make an effort to keep things interesting by doing things they’ve never done before. Of course, fun is subjective—but psychologist Elizabeth Skibinski-Bortman starts by encouraging her older clients to spend time outside and to be physically active. Although research on the subject is scant, a 2011 study published in the American Journal of Play found a positive correlation between play and the psychological health of older adults. Experts believe that the benefits of keeping things playful into old age could include everything from less stress to a lower likelihood of developing dementia—which incidentally could help reduce America’s health care burden.