Parents in Museums
By Susie Wilkening, Senior Consultant and Curator of Museum Audiences, Reach Advisors (Blog is at http://reachadvisors.typepad.com)
Gen X parents are the majority of parents visiting museums right now, but Generation Y parents are only a few years away and they are likely to have completely different expectations (and, one wonders, if they will be more or less germaphobic than Generation Xers are!).
A big thing we are watching right now is the college attainment levels of Generation Y women. Right now, 70% of high school girls go to college. 60% of college graduates are women. That is, young women are 50% more likely to have a college degree than young men.
And the shocker: in communities with an influx of young people, young women are outearning young men. In Dallas, for example, a woman in her 20s earns $1.20 for every $1.00 a man in his 20s earns. With layoffs disproportionately hitting men, especially those without college degrees, we have to wonder if this new gender gap has grown even faster over the past few months.
What does that mean for museums and a generation of parents? Women with college degrees tend to marry later, have children later. With more women than ever attaining college degrees, we believe parenthood will be even further postponed for many women.
The oldest Gen Ys are now in their late 20s. Projecting in the traditional museum market of well-educated visitors, we can expect Generation Y parents to start showing up in children's museums in large numbers in the next five years. Perhaps 5 - 7 years for science centers.
Some quick things we are keeping an eye on:
- with women more likely to outearn men, will we see more stay-at-home dads?
- Generation Y is generally closer to their parents than previous generations. Will we see an increased demand for inter-generational programming?
- will those grandparents also be involved with childcare?
- with the explosion of creativity taking place in this young generation in particular, what will be the creative expectations of Generation Y moms at museums?
- finally, having grown up in a highly participatory culture of YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, and Twitter, how will museums enage them in participatory ways (not only when they are parents, but now as well)?
And this does not even delve into your excellent points about minority parents, who may, or may not, have different expectations.
