The Retirement Home That isn’t for Boomers, it's for Gen Z

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We talk a lot about the coming elder care crisis in America.

And it’s not theoretical.

Every day, roughly 10,000 Baby Boomers turn 65. By 2031, all Boomers will be retirement age (67 according to SSA), and one in five Americans will be over 65 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). At the same time, nursing homes across the country are limiting new admissions because they simply don’t have the staff. The American Health Care Association reports that more than half of facilities face workforce shortages severe enough to restrict capacity (AHCA/NCAL, 2023).

And the cost? The median annual price of assisted living now exceeds $64,000, while a private room in a nursing home can top $100,000 per year (Genworth, 2024).

Beds are scarce. Workers are scarce. Money is tight. The largest generation, to that point, in modern American history is aging into a system already under strain.

So when I saw headlines about a new retirement-style living concept opening, I assumed it was another attempt to solve that problem.

It wasn’t.

Because this assisted living community isn’t for the Silent Generation. It isn’t for Baby Boomers. It’s not even for those Gen Xers that just started cresting 60. 

It’s for Gen Z.

In the late 1960s, a U.S. Senate subcommittee convened to consider what automation, specifically the computer, would do for the American worker. Some policymakers speculated that computers might increase productivity so dramatically that Americans could retire before 40. The fear wasn’t job loss. It was abundance. Too much leisure. Too much free time.

And while the age of retirement didn't shift down at that point in time, the reality is our output dramatically increased, and many were able to complete by age 40 what it took many to accomplish by age 60, especially with white-collar jobs. 

Instead of introducing leisure however, we built a culture of acceleration. Longer work hours. Constant connectivity. Performance measured in real time.

And now, in Malaysia, a 26-year-old entrepreneur has opened what many are calling a “Gen Z retirement home.” Located in Gopeng and marketed as a sanctuary for burned-out young adults, the program offers tech-light living, shared meals, structured quiet, and intentional rest for a few hundred dollars a month (Relevant Magazine, 2024; The Smart Local, 2024).

Three homemade meals a day. Limited screens. Slow mornings. It looks like assisted living for the “burned out” Gen Z.

It would be easy to blame artificial intelligence. Or remote work. Or automation finally arriving.

But this isn’t about being replaced by machines.

Gen Z, born between 1997 and 2012, is the first generation to grow up entirely inside the digital ecosystem. Nearly half of teens say they are online “almost constantly” (Pew Research Center, 2022). They report higher levels of stress than older generations, with young adults consistently topping the American Psychological Association’s stress index (APA, 2023). Gallup has found that Gen Z adults are more likely than any other cohort to report persistent anxiety and loneliness (Gallup, 2023).

They don’t remember life before Wi-Fi.
They don’t remember life before social metrics.
They don’t remember life before performance became public.

And here’s what matters: they are already used to experiencing life alone.

In their bedrooms. On their beds. Phone in hand. Headphones on. Connected to everyone.

But, physically by themselves.

They learned to socialize asynchronously. To process identity in isolation. To build community without proximity.

So, when life gets tough, instead of a vacation, they do what they’ve always done, retreat to isolation. 

Millennials unplugged by traveling. By chasing experiences. By upgrading flights to fancy first-class seats and curating sunsets on yachts or swimming with pigs in the Bahamas for Instagram. But even in their disconnection, they still had a virtual audience.

Gen Z’s version of escape is quieter.

If you are already accustomed to being alone while digitally connected, then unplugging entirely doesn’t feel dramatic. It feels logical.

Why not go somewhere else? Why not remove the feed?
Why not simulate retirement for a month?

It’s not indulgence. It’s withdrawal from noise because that is what Gen Z has been programmed to do.

We’ve talked before about anti-fragility. Not toughness for toughness’ sake, but the capacity to grow stronger through stress.

Gen Z is the most therapy-literate generation in modern history. They are also the most stressed. Pew reports that they are more likely than older cohorts to view mental health treatment positively and to seek it out (Pew Research Center, 2019).

Some interpret that as fragility. Others see it as emotional intelligence.

But here’s the more uncomfortable question: what happens when the coping mechanism for stress becomes retreat rather than resilience?

When a 25-year-old voluntarily checks into a space that resembles assisted living — a phase of life when people need extra help to get through daily routines — that’s not just a quirky travel trend.

That’s cultural commentary.

And before we caricature them, we need to remember the Generational Prism and moment effects. This generation navigated smartphones before adolescence and a global pandemic during prime developmental years. Their high school graduations were livestreamed. Their freshman year orientations happened on Zoom. Their friendships were filtered through glass.

Isolation wasn’t chosen at first.

It was imposed first by screens, then by individualized algorithms, and then by the planet during a pandemic. 

Now they are choosing a version of it on their own terms.

There's more to this story, too. While the actual Gopeng Sanctuary may exist in Malaysia, the TikTok video that first introduced this assisted living facility is now removed. The facility has no verifiable website, official social media, or a location in any online business directory.

And yet, this story has been widely reported by countless sources, including reputable outlets, each offering slightly different nuances from variations in pricing to the entrepreneur’s backstory to the amenities included.

Whether fiction or reality, the virality of the story speaks to how Gen Z is labeled and they're being perceived.

What may be even more of a cultural moment worth noting is that this shows how information spreads like wildfire. All the while, we talk about truth-seeking and yet we blindly rely on the media ‘s stories without even challenging the veracity of what we consume. We seem to throw all accuracy out the window in exchange for sadly believable headlines. 

And while many primary sources are unavailable, what is abundant are subreddits and comment sections filled with Gen Zers desperately trying to reserve a room. The generation appears to want this place to be real. If young adults are so eager to pay for simulated retirement environments, it suggests they don’t believe rest is possible inside the system we built.

Some may call it laziness, others might call it fragility. Regardless of the label, the reality is our youngest generation in the workforce is desperate for reprieve from the world in which they've grown up inside. 

Each generation has encountered the workforce differently and left its different imprint on culture and society. 

Baby Boomers worked to provide. Gen X detached to survive. Millennials optimized life into a series of curated experiences.

Gen Z is recalibrating.

Not by escaping to Bali. Not by chasing exclusivity.
But by slowing down in structured solitude.

The Senate once imagined computers would let us retire at 40.

Instead, we created a culture that is moving so fast, so polarized, and so saturated that 25-year-olds are experimenting with retirement before they even get started.

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