Marketing Review — Summer 2008 - (Page 21) TRENDS Generational & Family 15) Family structures are becoming more diverse. In periods of economic difficulty, children and grandchildren move back in with parents and grandparents to save on living expenses. Many bring their own children with them. In the United States, one-third of Generation Xers have returned home at some point in their early lives. Among Millennials, the figure is even higher. The 2001 Census found that so-called “multigenerational households” are the fastest growing group in the United States. Yet the nuclear family also is rebounding in the United States, as Baby-Boomer and Gen-X parents focus on their children and grandparents retain more independence and mobility. Same-sex households also are gaining new acceptance. At least five American states now permit same-sex marriage or have enacted domestic-partnership laws that provide similar protections. In this, they join such countries as Denmark, Germany, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom, and most recently Switzerland. Many grandparents are raising their grandchildren because drugs and AIDS have left the middle generation either unable or unavailable to care for their children. This trend is strongest in sub-Saharan Africa, where there will be 25 million AIDS orphans by 2010. ASSESSMENT: This trend will remain in effect for at least a generation in the United States, longer in the rest of the world. IMPLICATIONS: Where many European countries have largely adjusted to this trend, the United States has not. Making that adjustment will be an important challenge for the next decades. SUMMER 2008 • 55 TRENDS FOR TRAVEL & HOSPITALITY 5 16 Tax and welfare policies need adjustment to cope with families in which heads of households are retired or unable to work. Policies also need modification for those who receive Social Security and work to support an extended family. In the United States, the debates over homosexuality and the “decline of the family” will remain polarizing for the foreseeable future. The next debate is likely to focus on granting parental rights to more than two parents, as when a sperm or egg donor wants a role in the life of a child whose official parents are the recipients. IMPLICATIONS FOR HOSPITALITY AND TRAVEL: Gays, lesbians, singles, single parents, and multigenerational families all have become lucrative markets for specialty cruises, group tours, and other niche services. They can only grow increasingly significant in the years ahead. 16) Young people place increasing importance on economic success, which they have come to expect. Throughout the 1990s—effectively, their entire adult lives— Generation Xers and the Millennials knew only good economic times, and the economic downturn at the turn of the century seemed to them a confusing aberration rather than a predictable part of the business cycle. Most expect to see hardship on a national level, but they both want and expect prosperity for themselves. In the United States especially, most young people have high aspirations, but many lack the means to achieve them owing to high dropout rates and ineffective schools. ASSESSMENT: This trend appeared with the Baby Boom generation and has strengthened with the later cohorts. It will 21
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