What are EASI® Life Stages?

August 15, 2024 By

Toddler, adolescent, post-academic, homeowner, or renter are just some of the ways we describe our life stages. When it comes to demographics, though, we need better ways to define and make sense of them. 

At EASI, we’ve created a simplified clustering system called EASI Life Stages to help categorize this data. Our Life Stages are based on the concept that your age, income, and family status are key determinants in the type of neighborhood you live in. They represent a phase in a person’s life based on circumstances that will eventually change. 

People get jobs, change jobs, and move for school. They might get married, have kids, buy a car, or purchase real estate. As we age, these changes continue, and so the EASI Life Stages evolve throughout a person’s lifetime. 

Our customers use EASI Life Stages to analyze direct mail results, sales opportunities, marketing and political campaigns, and more. Each business can use EASI Life Stages to help drive their business in informative and persuasive ways. 

How EASI determines Life Stages

At their core, EASI Life Stages is a community-oriented scheme that identifies and quantifies the factors that affect when and where people move. We start by looking at the Age of the Head of Households, their Marital Status, and Household Income since each of these often determine life’s key decisions. 

To determine Life Stage clusters, we then search and sort data in the EASI Master Database to create a large pool of data. We then combine the related demographics and consumer expenditure variables to develop the larger Life Stage Clusters. The final report is based on the Block Group database and displayed across four periods and a five-year forecast: 2000, 2010, 2020, the current year data is available for, and the forecast. 

Sample of some of the Life Stage clusters

The EASI Life Stages report includes data on 84 Life Stages, including seven age ranges, four marital statuses, and three income groups. 

For example, in this sample report for Late Middle Age (45-54) Families with No Children in New York state, the population growth is ranked on the lower end of the EASI Rank (24,315th out of 39,789), but improves in the five-year forecast (15,450th out of 39,789).

Further into the report, it shows that:

Most people live in a detached 1-unit dwelling (most likely a detached house) and most have a mortgage on their home. 

How to use Life Stages

Each Life Stage can be sorted in the report based on a larger variable, such as Neighborhood Median Income Summary or Dominant Life Stage Household Summary, to find insights relevant to your business. 

Here are a few more ways to use EASI Life Stages:

  • Education planning: Population, Population Forecast, and Household Growth can be used by education systems to plan school upgrades based on size and potential growth.
  • Retail location discovery: Income data can be used to plan retail locations to ensure relevant retailers are attracted to the area. 
  • Political campaigning: Age and household data can be used to estimate volunteer needs, polling station locations and resources, and plan campaign stops.
  • Housing forecasting: Cities can use the household size, age, and income data to plan new housing developments, especially relevant in larger cities where house prices are high. They can ensure enough density is built to support forecasted population growth.

Uncover the Life Stages that apply to your business

Communities and the people that live there evolve. People change jobs, go to school, have children, and move as their needs and situations change. EASI Life Stages can help you make plans for your business with relevant data for a community. 

To learn more about the Life Stages, contact EASI today. We’ll help your business so you get the most out of them.