Empty nester women: The new targeting market?

There’s a tremendous, ageless opportunity hiding in plain sight, but marketers need to look through a different lens to see it. Right now, there are some 35 million U.S. empty nester women, as I calculate it, and a growing percentage of them are single. They aren’t retreating into rest and relaxation; they are stepping out to exult in activities they finally have the time, money, and motivation to pursue. 

Historically, marketers have largely overlooked this demographic. Or, if they address this market, it’s only for margin and share growth. That’s the wrong framework. The real opportunity isn’t just about capturing their spending power, it’s about recognizing a profound market failure and taking the opportunity to right it by improving women’s lives. It’s time to talk about how we earn a share of life instead of a share of wallet. 

As Nina Rossello, our SVP of strategy at A&G put it, “Ginger Rogers famously noted that as women, we do the same dance, but we do it backwards and in heels. We’re tired of having to work twice as hard for the applause. We want products, services, and brands that are built for us, so we don’t have to overcome a system built for men in order to reap its benefits.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, NOT VALIDATION

Empty nester women aren’t looking for validation; they are looking for acknowledgement. They don’t need brands to fix them. They need brands to fix the systems that were built with men, couples, and younger adults in mind. Smart brands will stop charging women, particularly single empty nester women, a tax just to participate and will start actively removing the barriers to entry.

Take the travel industry: 78% of North American women 50+ cite the “single supplement” (a premium charged for not sharing lodging) as a barrier to traveling. Given that an estimated 84% of solo travelers are women, the double-occupancy standard isn’t just a turnoff, it’s an insult. When brands eliminate this friction, the market responds. The Adventure Travel Association has seen a surge in travel companies focused on women travelers, driven heavily by the 50+ demographic. Companies like Girls’ Guide To The World—which is seeing 25-30% annual booking growth—built its pricing model on single occupancy by default, overtly stating that they never charge a single supplement. They didn’t just target a demographic; they reconfigured a faulty model.

THE FAMILY CENTER

Contrary to the term, “empty nester,” women are frequently still at the center of extended family conversations and activities, providing a financial and functional safety net for adult children and directly influencing grandchildren. They lead the multi-generational group chats. They take the grandkids on vacation, doing 75% of the planning and footing 84% of the bill.

Rather than just viewing them as shadow influencers to monetize, marketers should ask how we can support them. What emotional, financial, and functional pressures are adult children placing on them? Is “mom guilt” still driving their decisions or even intensifying with age? By understanding these dynamics, brands can design solutions that genuinely relieve their burdens rather than exploit their generosity. Ease the friction for a grandmother planning a multi-generational trip or create experiences that fulfill a mother’s longing to connect and bond with her adult children.

VITALITY, NOT VANITY

Our industry too easily defines the actions of empty nester women as a retreat into vanity or a longing for the past. But whether they are investing in aesthetic procedures or new wellness tech, the motivation is less about clinging to the past than refusing to be underestimated in the present.

These women aren’t sitting on the sidelines. They are starting businesses, leading trends, and planning complex multi-generational adventures. They are in the middle of their most active, empowered years, and they want the focus on their vitality and value, not their age. To understand who they are now, consider who they were before the responsibilities of adulthood piled up. What is the new coming of age story they have the space and resources to write now?

Then spend a few hours in their lives. What’s getting in the way? What does it feel like to move in their bodies? Tools like MIT’s AGNES suit (Age Gain Now Empathy System) allow a 30-year-old marketer to viscerally feel the stiffness and vision loss of a 75-year-old. Once you understand how a pill bottle or a product label is a barrier, you realize that inclusive design isn’t just a niche service, it’s a market expander. When you solve a friction point for anybody, you can build a fundamentally better product for everybody.

When brands create with this audience in mind, empty nester women adopt new products and technology more readily than marketers are conditioned to assume. Just look to QVC. By integrating its “Age of Possibility” Q50 collective (featuring Martha Stewart and Queen Latifah) with a broader TikTok Shop affiliate strategy, the company drove a 30% year-over-year surge in targeted social and streaming revenue, acquiring over 100,000 new customers through TikTok in a single quarter. QVC didn’t find a new market; they just built a better door for the one that was already there.

Empty nester women offer a massive, multi-generational opportunity, but capturing it requires a fundamental shift in perspective. We need to stop marketing to demographic categories, treating groups outside of the 25-50 core as secondary considerations. This segment is exceptionally savvy, have earned their grit, and spent much of their lives navigating systems built for everyone else. When you take the time to truly understand and solve for empty nester women, you aren’t just catering to a niche, you are proving your baseline value to your entire audience. But if I’ve learned one thing, they won’t sit around waiting for you. So, either start building solutions or get out of their way.

Andrew Graff is CEO of A&G (Allen & Gerritsen).