By Natasha Collishaw
As the baby boomers age, the artistic community in Ottawa may see a renaissance.
Seniors tend to be heavy users of the arts, says Al Loney, executive director of the Ottawa Council of Aging. They go to more live performances than the average person and visit museums more often because they have more leisure time. Many of them are also frequent volunteers, meaning artistic organizations may have more help in the future.
“And you don’t have to worry,” Loney says. “We don’t normally cough and die during performances, so there will be no need to drag us out in coffins.”
The so-called baby boomers are those aged 41 to 60, conceived in the post-Second World War baby boom. In 2012, the first baby boomers will turn 65, and there will be a large growth of the 65 plus age bracket in the following decade. In 2021, the elderly will make up over 16 per cent of Ottawa’s population, compared to less than 12 per cent today.
But will this group of people, who came of age listening to the Beatles and Janis Joplin, suddenly turn to Mozart and Beethoven simply because they hit 65?
Bingo, bridge, and line dancing are some of the activities listed on the November event calendar at OttawaSeniors.com. But the grandmas and grandpas of the future may also be testing the efficacy of their knee surgery by learning to tango or break-dance.
The retirement of the baby boomers will change arts and recreation in the city, says Sue Hall, vice-chair of Ottawa Parks and Recreation.
“We (the baby boomers) have been sitting at our desks for too many years,” Hall says. “It is time to get physical.”
She speculates that there will be an increase in all types of activity, from ballroom dancing to three-on-three basketball.
But she doesn’t think that bingo and line-dancing will become endangered species. She says the sheer volume of baby boomers ensure that an increase is seen in all types of activity.
Along with musty bingo halls, Ottawa may see senior citizens in spandex grooving to eighties tunes, testing their strength with rock-climbing and perhaps annoying their spouses by taking up the saxophone in their 70s.
“They will probably take up something they have never had time to do before,” Hall says.
At the Jack Purcell Community Centre, they are “definitely” taking into account the changing demographics, says programming officer Karren Mitchell-Morrison.
She says the centre anticipates expanding their offerings for seniors in the future, which may include more exotic activities such as Indian dancing. The planned revitalization and expansion of the centre will take into account the baby boomer demographic and their needs, says Mitchell-Morrison.
But the baby boomers may also face challenges that impede their ability to participate in Ottawa’s arts scene.
One of these is money. The majority of baby boomers are not preparing themselves adequately for a comfortable retirement, a recent Harvard University study of baby boomers worldwide suggests. An estimated 80 per cent of Canadian baby boomers expect to enter retirement in debt.
In Ottawa, seniors tend to be a fairly well off group, says Loney. About 80 per cent have a modest disposable income that is just begging to be spent at the theatre, the opera house or on piano lessons, clinically proven in studies to help ward off Alzheimer’s disease.
Another potential problem is the effect of the irresponsible lifestyle choices that were the hallmark of youth in the 1960s and 1970s. Studies suggest that those who frequented rock concerts in their youth are now experiencing hearing loss at younger ages. There is also evidence that some are already experiencing memory loss caused by their experimentation with drugs.
Another factor to consider is the longer life expectancy of women. Will yoga and dance lessons become more popular as females become a growing majority?
Loney says the magnitude of the change that aging baby boomers will create is overblown. He says he cannot imagine this group of people will be significantly different than those a couple of years older.
“Seniors are just regular people-some like the arts, some don’t,” he says.