Jackson Shoemaker | 2026 I.S. Symposium
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Title: The Silver Tsunami: An Analysis of Baby Boomers’ Impact on the Housing Market and the Generational Response
Majors: Business Economics ; Statistical Data Sciences
Advisors: Jancy Liu, Changzhi Ma
This study explores how the aging Baby Boomer generation may shape the U.S. housing market and how younger generations, especially Millennials, may respond. I develop a theoretical framework linking retirement, delayed mobility, intergenerational wealth transfer, and expected home prices to future housing supply and demand. Empirically, the study uses IPUMS census and ACS microdata to estimate logistic regression models of renting and recent residential mobility across generations, and it uses ARIMA, ETS, and random walk with drift models to forecast median home values. Among the time-series models, the random walk with drift best fit log median home value from 2000 to 2015 and projected continued price growth through 2034. The regression results show that renting declines with age, income, and household size, while generational differences remain important even after controlling for those factors. Millennials are more likely to rent at younger ages than Boomers, but their rental probability falls faster over time, suggesting eventual convergence in homeownership. At the same time, Boomers are less likely to move later in life than comparable members of earlier generations, indicating slower housing turnover. Overall, the findings suggest that the housing effects of population aging will likely be delayed and uneven: rather than triggering an immediate and widespread Silver Tsunami, Boomer aging may produce a gradual release of supply that is absorbed over time as younger households move into ownership.
Posted in Symposium 2026 on May 1, 2026.
