Valentina Duque
Marketing Manager
AMI
For years, the business community in Latin America assumed that consumer spending was driven by young people. However, the data is revealing a new paradigm: baby boomers and older members of Generation X have become a key economic group, with solid spending patterns, growing digital adoption, and a decisive role in multigenerational households.
This segment—which is no longer entirely made up of baby boomers or Generation X members, and is more commonly known as the “silver generation”—is a demographic continuum that will continue to grow over the coming decades in Latin America, impacting multiple consumer categories.
In this article, we focus on the key attitudes and preferences of this generation—consumers aged 55 and older.
30+ Years Reading Latin America’s Consumer Markets
AMI helps companies turn regional data into decisions — from market sizing to category strategy across 20+ countries.
What Do Latin Americans Aged 55+ Actually Buy the Most?
These are the categories where the silver generation focuses most of its spending and where AMI has identified critical nuances.
1. Personal Purchases and Well-Being: Autonomy as the Cornerstone of Adult Consumption
The data show that silver-haired consumers are maintaining—and even increasing—their spending in personal categories.
The data indicate that:1
- Culture and entertainment are essential parts of daily life for 42% of Latin American adults over 65
- 39% of adults aged 55 to 64 seek travel services, as well as clothing, footwear, and accessories.
This pattern contradicts the notion that LatAm’s “generación plateada” cuts back on their own needs to prioritize others. On the contrary, personal consumption is an affirmation of autonomy—a key behavior for fashion, beauty, wellness, and retail brands.
2. Health and prevention: the most stable driver of spending among 55+ shoppers
Aging accelerates demand for health care. In Chile, 18.7% of total health care spending is attributed to households with older adults.2 And in Argentina, adults over the age of 50 spend 54% more on healthcare than the general population.3
Healthcare spending for LatAm’s “silver” consumers involves:
- Regular checkups
- Medications and treatments for chronic conditions
- Functional nutrition
- Physical activity tailored to older adults
- Private services to compensate for the inadequacies of the public system in several Latin American countries
In helping clients with studies of LatAm’s silver generation, at AMI we didn’t just focus on quantifying demand, but instead looked to identify the actual ability to pay by cohort, since we have observed that economic pressure does not affect boomers and Gen Xers uniformly.
3. Stability in terms of savings, liquidity, and asset protection
Boomers continue to prioritize cash, even as digital financial products gain ground. The situation varies significantly from country to country, depending on the different levels of maturity in electronic payments.
For example, in Colombia—a market considered mature in terms of payment systems—90% of adults over 55 have formal financial products.4 In that country, platforms like Nequi are gaining ground: in 2023, the app reported that about 17% of its users were between 50 and 75 years old.5
In contrast, we can look at Peru, where 27% of adults over 55 lack access to financial products.6 In that country, financial penetration has historically been lower, with greater barriers to access linked to educational attainment and trust in the financial ecosystem. Another important factor is that Peru has one of the highest rates of economic informality in the region.
This opens up two strategic paths:
- For financial institutions: true financial inclusion through clear, simple, and reliable products.
- For consumer companies: understanding that liquidity influences the average transaction amount and purchase frequency.
How the 55+ Segment Is Changing Payments in LatAm
AMI’s allied firm PCMI specializes in payments market intelligence — tracking digital adoption, trust gaps, and financial behavior across 15+ markets.
4. Multigenerational Consumption, Influence Across Multiple Categories
Boomers and older members of Generation X do not consume on their own. In multigenerational households:
- They finance household purchases
- They provide support for education and family logistics
- They cover the recurring expenses of adult children and grandchildren
This behavior completely changes traditional analyses. The “unit of consumption” is not the individual aged 55 and older, but rather the extended household in which the economic influence of the silver generation is decisive.
Thus, silver generation consumers in Latin America not only enjoy the aforementioned spending autonomy but also help make decisions regarding the purchase of specific products. Among the products where they have the greatest influence on spending are dietary supplements and alcoholic beverages, highlighting the importance of new marketing strategies.
How AMI Analyzes Silver Generation Consumption
Based on some of our recent projects, we’ve created a handy mini-guide for companies interested in reaching Latin America’s silver generation.
We structured it strategically, working to translate the silver generation’s consumer data into business decisions.
Some quick context: at AMI, we approach market intelligence through three service pillars: Grow, Measure, and Protect. Each pillar addresses a key question every company should ask itself before investing: where to grow, what to measure to avoid mistakes, and what risks to anticipate in order to protect the strategy. In our article entitled “The Playbook for Reaching the Boomer Market in Latin America,” we explain the company’s insights-driven perspective on senior consumers in greater detail.
When viewed as a whole, the following matrix helps illustrate how the digital and consumer behavior of baby boomers and mature Gen Xers translates into real opportunities—provided that the market size, adoption capacity, and economic pressures influencing their decisions are accurately assessed.
600+ Consumer Studies. One Focus: Your Market.
AMI delivers custom 55+ studies that quantify spending patterns, digital adoption, and purchasing influence by country and socioeconomic level.
AMI Methodology — Opportunities and Strategic Decisions for the 55+ Segment in Latin America
| AMI Framework | What to Analyze | What This Means for Your Company | Key Opportunities and Risks |
|---|---|---|---|
| GROW Identify where to grow |
|
|
Opportunities: stable spending patterns, high digital connectivity, influence on household purchasing decisions. Risks: investing in segments without the ability to pay or overestimating digital adoption. |
| MEASURE Measure accurately |
|
|
Opportunities: targeting segments with high lifetime value. Risks: making mistakes in pricing, UX, or messaging if digital friction and payment capacity aren’t measured. |
| PROTECT Anticipate risks |
|
|
Opportunities: build a trusted brand in a segment that values safety and reliability. Risks: competitors may adapt their value proposition sooner and win the trust of the 55+ demographic first. |
Sources:
- Tsunami LATAM 2025 ↩︎
- CIPEM. (2025). Chile Plateado – El poder transformador de la generación 50+ ↩︎
- BID, prepared by Data8. (2024). La economía plateada en Argentina, Chile, Paraguay y Uruguay ↩︎
- Tsunami LATAM 2025 ↩︎
- Nequi. (14 de junio, 2023). ¿Cómo manejan la plata los colombianos? Nequi resalta su apuesta por la cotidianidad [Press Release] ↩︎
- Tsunami LATAM 2025 ↩︎
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