Family life cycle

The family life cycle is a series of typical stages that families go through, from family formation to dissolution. At each stage individual and family needs and wants differ, creating opportunities for marketers to change and provide what will best suit their customers. The family life cycle can comprise up to eight stages, including bachelor, young married, full nest, single parent, divorced and alone, middle-aged and married, full nest again, and empty nest. The usefulness of family life-cycle analysis is looking at customer groups based on their life stage rather than age or other demographic measure. For example, in the United States the average age at which people get married for the first time has been increasing, which means consumers remain in the bachelor stage for a longer period of time. Bachelors are more likely to need apartment furnishings, purchase economy or sports cars, and pursue adventure travel. Another phenomenon within the bachelor stage is that young people are staying longer in their parents’ home. Especially in areas where housing costs are high, many young singles live at home and will have different needs than those moving into their own dwellings. Young married couples are an attractive group to many marketers. Anyone who has recently become engaged has probably been overwhelmed with a vast array of promotions from wedding services, jewelers, travel agents, and INSURANCE companies. Many new choices and decisions are made in a short period of time among young married couples, creating needs and opportunities for marketers. Even before the arrival of first children, full-nest families (and filling-the-nest families) change their CONSUMER BEHAVIOR. Sports cars often cannot hold safety seats and are traded in for vans and SUVs. Larger apartments and firsthome purchases create changing needs for products. Insurance, health care, and other service needs also change. Single parent and divorced and alone are two similar and typical family life-cycle stages. The splitting up of households creates changing needs for products and services and undoes many existing CONTRACTs, including home ownership and insurance coverage. Those families that make it through the full-nest stage or remarry after the single-parent stage become the middleaged and married segment. These households tend to have higher INCOMEs, established relationships with firms, and greater interest in quality and timesaving products. Often, within a few years, these families are surprised to find themselves in the full-nest-again stage, as college-graduate children return home. This can create needs for remodeling, changing insurance needs, and a variety of products to accommodate different needs under one roof. Eventually the family life cycle leads to the empty-nest stage. At this point families often shift from homes to condominiums or purchase a second home in a warmer climate, leaving offspring behind to take care of the homestead. Travel demand increases, and at some point health-care needs grow. Of course, many adult groups do not go through the family life cycle. Marketers refer to DINKS (Double Income, No Kids) as one segment of affluent consumers who choose to not have children.