The evolution of elderly consumer research: a historical review

This article reconstructs the evolution of research on elderly consumers from the 1950s to the present, providing insights for both scholars and practitioners. The historical dimension identifies five major phases in marketing thought – from early descriptive works to contemporary studies on digital aging – revealing how the elderly consumer evolved from a marginal, deficit-defined figure to an autonomous, identity-driven actor. Taken together, these phases show that the study of elderly consumers is not merely a response to demographic change but a reflection of how marketing has interpreted human aging as a social and economic phenomenon. By integrating past findings, the article highlights the cumulative and multidimensional nature of consumers’ old age and encourages future studies to embed historical awareness within analyses of the silver economy.