Credit and the generations

As we've been doing the interviews with older couples, one recurring theme is the perception of fundamental changes to attitudes towards possessions, between the generations we are interviewing, and their children's and grandchildren's generations. Many of our sample have remarked to the effect that 'In my day we saved up - if we didn't have the money, we didn't get the thing we wanted' whereas there is the belief that nowadays, people firstly seem to consider as necessities things that the older generations considered luxuries (such as a washing machine, or new furniture as opposed to second hand) and that they are prepared to borrow money to finance these purchases, rather than save up for them.

My perception (based on years working in financial services marketing, as well as my own life experience) is that the growth of the credit industry, particularly in the 70s and 80s, meant that people got used to the idea of getting things instantly ("Buy now pay later"). Indeed one credit card marketed itself with the line "Take the waiting out of wanting." Further, the inflation of the 70s particularly meant that there was little point in waiting: if you tried to save up, the price of the item would have put it beyond your reach, so much better to buy on credit and have the thing at the lower price.

Now though, we have low inflation: so are these generational differences just due to the formation - at key stages of life - of different habits which persist into later life, or are there some other factors at work here? Why are older people so (apparently) afraid of credit? Why are younger people so relaxed about it, even when it costs them a fortune?

Income and Poverty in Later Life

I attended the launch of a new report today at the Pensions Policy Institute. The report is 'Retirement Income and Assets: Do Pensioners have sufficient income to meet their needs'. In keeping with the PPIs excellent reputation, it is a thorough and thought-provoking piece of research, and the launch event was too. The report covers many areas relating to income and poverty of older people but highlights what I think is one of the most problematic areas in the way that we think about income, poverty and older people. This is, what does it mean for your income, your quality of life, and your experience of hardship, if you or your partner, or both of you, develop ill health or become frail or unwell in later life? In official low income statistics, we have no way of accounting for the increased costs associated with disability, frailty and ill health. Some increased costs are pretty obvious - like if you have to heat your house all day to keep warm, or if you have increased washing to do and so on. But to really keep the quality of life that you had before, or as close to it as you can get, requires paying for things that are not so obvious - so for example, if you took great pleasure from your garden, but can no longer do the gardening, then to maintain that quality of life you would now have to pay a gardener. If you can no longer walk to the bus, then to get out as much as you used to, you may need taxis, or even to hire a car and a driver for example if you live in a rural area where there are no taxis. If you can no longer take routine exercise, then you may benefit strongly from having regular physiotherapy which you would have to pay for. I don't think governments really recognise that when older people adjust to a much reduced lifestyle, this may in fact only be the result of not having suffucient money to maintain their earlier lifestyle - it's not a preference. Their health problems have made them poorer. We have no poverty measures that take account of this. This is compounded in official statistics because in the UK, any disability benefits, which are meant to help towards these additional costs of disability, are counted as income BUT no account is taken of the additional costs that those benefits are meant to help with. The PPI report concludes that many pensioners will struggle to cope with health-related costs as they age. I think this is a topic that deserves much more research attention than it currently gets.

For Richer For Poorer Website Development

I have spent some time this week on developing the website. This has made me wonder about the process of qualitative research and how thoughts and findings slowly emerge from the process of research - we are putting these on the website, but is this the right thing to do? If one of the respondents looks at the website between recruitment and interview, does it 'contaminate' the data in any way to tell potential respondents what it is you are thinking? Or is it just a more honest way of communicating those higher level thoughts that are in your mind as you constantly refine your interview schema as you progress through the research? Either way, you are testing out your ideas about how the world works with the people who are informing you about how the world works. I feel pretty comfortable with it, but I do wonder what the purist methodologists might think.