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“If you broke it out by quintile, you would probably a good chunk of the gains have probably gone to the upper two quintiles,” says Mr. Guatieri.

But a research report he issued this month nevertheless shows that the median net worth of families headed by someone 65 and older was up 312% in 2012, to $460,700 from $111,693 in 1984, even after inflation was factored in. He notes the TSX Composite Index rose 530% during that period while home prices swelled by 430%.

Boomers aged 55 to 64 have watched their wealth grow too, but only by 222% from 1984 to 2102, using constant dollars. And the poor Millennial, born in the ’80s, has only seen an 81% increase in net worth during the same period.

“Today, the typical senior is nine times richer than the typical Millennial,” says Mr. Guatieri.

That has the potential to have a huge impact on retailing: companies catering to that segment of the population will “thrive,” he says, and those who don’t risk missing out on a lucrative target market.

Seniors will account for 27.7% of the Canadian population in 2033, up from 18.2% today. But will they spend? Some will splurge, but studies in the U.S. show seniors only spent about 80% of what the typical shopper spent in 2012, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Still, that appears to be rapidly on its way up: the pace of spending by American seniors has increased faster than any other segment of the population over the last decade.