ABSTRACT
The very real differences in consumption patterns among older people may be better understood in relation to physical capacity, income, gender, cultural background, and expectations than to chronological generation. Nevertheless, there are likely to have been changes over time in the patterns and tendencies in the complex range of activities authors define as "consumption" by different age cohorts, whether or not they call them generations. Since the 1930s, objects of consumption have become more diverse and more of them accessible even to those on relatively low incomes, whatever their age, than ever before. It would be very surprising if many older like younger, people have not experienced an expansion in the range and type of goods and services they consume. Images, diaries, letters, and other sources suggest that when older people have had the means, they have not been averse to consumption or necessarily very different in their consumption patterns from younger people, sometimes despite social pressures to the contrary.
