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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Consumption junkies or sustainable consumers
— considering the grocery shopping practices of those transitioning to retirement | | Author(s) | S Venn, K Burningham, I Christie, T Jackson |
| Journal title | Ageing and Society, vol 37, no 1, January 2017 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press, January 2017 |
| Pages | pp 14-38 |
| Source | journals.cambridge.org/aso |
| Keywords | Food ; Shops ; Consumer choice ; Adjustment ; Attitude ; Retirement ; Longitudinal surveys ; England ; Scotland. |
| Annotation | The current generation of older people who are approaching or have recently experienced retirement form part of a unique generational habitus who have witnessed a cultural shift into consumerism. These baby boomers are often portrayed as engaging in excessive levels of consumption, which are counter to notions of sustainable living and to intergenerational harmony. This paper focuses on an exploration of the mechanisms underpinning the consumption patterns of baby boomers as they retire. The authors achieve this through an understanding of the everyday practices of grocery shopping, which have the potential to give greater clarity to patterns of consumption than the more unusual or 'extraordinary' forms of consumption such as global travel. In-depth interviews with 40 older men and women in four locations across England and Scotland were conducted at three points in time across the period of retirement. The authors suggest that the grocery shopping practices of these older men and women have been influenced by two factors. The first relates to parental values and upbringing, leading to the reification of thrift and frugality as virtues, alongside aspirations for self-actualisation, such as undertaking global travel. The second factor is the influence of household context and caring roles on consumption choices. The authors conclude with some tentative observations concerning the implications of the ways in which baby boomers consume, in terms of increasing calls for people to live in more sustainable ways. (RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-170210002 A |
| Classmark | YP: WWE: WYC: DR: DP: G3: 3J: 82: 9A |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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