Consumption patterns among aging Canadians

Previous studies of older Canadians well-being have focused on changes in income as individuals age and leave the workforce. However, little has been published on the extent to which consumption levels change in this transitional period. This study uses data from the Survey of Family Expenditures and the Survey of Household Spending to develop a synthetic cohort approach to determine how the consumption patterns of households headed by those born in the late 1930s changed from middle age (in the early 1980s) to retirement (in the late 2000s).