GOLDEN GIRLS REVISITED
Alternative Employment and Shared Economy
By Francine St.Amand
Call it Shared Living, Cooperative Household, Collective Housing , Alternative Living. The Golden Girls of the 1980’s sitcom were on to something. Maybe it was a preview of what was to come as a necessary choice some three decades later.
Blanche, Dorothy, Rose and Sophia charmed their viewing audience for seven seasons from 1985-1992. The concept of four older women sharing a house was novel for that time. In 2014, it’s a model that may NEED to be adopted as a means of survival for many people in the near future, if not right now.
Retirement projections for the Late Boomers and GEN X is much grimmer than the previous three generations. Think about it. I think it is safe to say that generations prior to the Depression Babies were not concerned about building ‘nest eggs’ for their final years. If they managed to live long enough, they were taken care of by close or extended family. I am in no way romanticizing the struggles, sacrifices and general hard living experienced by our ancestors. Most of us would be crying like babies to live a day in their shoes (if they had shoes).
Some of the dates differ slightly based on authors, but here’s the general breakdown of generations of the last almost 100 years.
Depression babies, born between 1926 and 1935; now 79 to 88 years old
War babies, born between 1936 and 1945; now 69 to 78
Early boomers, born between 1946 and 1955; now 59 to 68
Late boomers, born between 1956 and 1965; now 49 to 58
Gen-Xers, born between 1966 and 1983; now 31 to 48
Gen Y, born between 1984 – 2002; now 12 to 30
Gen Z, born 2003 to current
In terms of a comfortable and secure retirement, it seems that war babies and early boomers are the ones who got to play around with that short-lived Golden Retirement experiment. Late boomers have been invited to play but the game rules keep changing. They are in trouble (me, I know as I am one of them). They have not done nearly as well as the early boomers to secure jobs with pensions & health insurance and money to invest for retirement. Many are second mortgaging their way to their retirement years. Gen Xers’ prospects for a comfortable retirement are even worse. For the Gen X and the older Gen Y who may have landed good paying jobs/careers, they are facing unprecedented debt loads not only personally but with strangling government deficits.
So with the personal asset/debt ratio turning on its head in a matter of a few generations, how are people facing retirement- now, very soon and for years to come- going to manage?
Most likely they are not going to manage very well at all, if they expect to have the financial security to ensure a comfortable retirement that has become the ‘norm’ to aspire to. The dream of Freedom 55 was just that – a dream.
In the last two issues of Blackfly, I shared some afterthoughts from Catherine Chambers’ workshop on Alternative Employment I attended in Moncton on Dec 11, 2013.
The first article highlighted the importance of Digital Literacy – knowing how to use technology to tap into new opportunities. The second article addressed the concept of New Prosperity which Catherine mentioned as a movement emerging globally. The New Prosperity is redefining wealth and promotes a very different way of doing business and living – one that involves collaboration and sharing. SHARING??? That just sounds so un-businesslike and desperate.
Sharing economy business models emerge from our oldest instincts as humans -– cooperation, sharing, generosity, individual choice and flexibility. Models include renting, bartering, loaning, gifting, swapping and forms of shared ownership such as cooperative structures. ~ Wikipedia
Key organizations promoting the sharing economy
A number of organizations have emerged in recent years who seek to connect collaborators and mainstream sharing. Key among these are:
The People Who Share: Founded by Benita Matofska in January 2011, The People Who Share is a UK-based non-for-profit whose mission is to mainstream the Sharing Economy. They run a global campaign to raise awareness and initiate action around the Sharing Economy: Global Sharing Day. In 2013 this campaign reached over 70 million people in 192 countries. In 2014 Global Sharing Day will be held on June 1.
OuiShare: A French-based non-for-profit aiming to connect efforts within the Sharing or Collaborative Economy to create a global network of collaborators. Having started in France in 2012, they have spread to Europe, Latin America and the Middle East.
Shareable: “Shareable is a non-profit news, action and connection hub for the sharing transformation”, and the primary global online magazine on the Sharing Economy.
Collaborative Consumption.com: Founded by Rachel Botsman, after her book ‘What’s Mine is Yours’ (2010), Collaborative Consumption.com has been growing as an online resource for collaborative consumption across the globe and as a network for the community within this space. They “curate news, content, events, jobs, studies and resources from key media outlets and industry blogs, as well as produce original content”.
The Mesh: Who hold a global directory of Sharing Economy Businesses and organized Mesh2013, a global gathering for the ‘instigators’ of the Sharing Economy.
BACK TO THE GOLDEN GIRLS: Shared living is on the menu of this emerging shared economy. With the right mix of people, sharing a home can be a win-win for all. The less each person has to fork out for living expenses, the more money is available to put into savings or spend on things that contribute to an interesting and enjoyable life. AND, each person is less pressured to generate ALL the revenue required to pay for and maintain a home. NOT HAVING to generate levels of income that are difficult to achieve and maintain, provides space for people to explore alternative employment.
Alternative Employment, New Prosperity, Shared Economy. These are all interconnected parts of this positive shift in values which is on the move here and around the world.
