Baby Boomers are those people born between 01 January 1946 and 31 December 1964.

As a marketer all you really need to know is that the first Baby Boomers will reach 60 in 2006. Their primary generation was the swinging sixties! That alone should tell you that they are wise to your messages, very wise indeed.

Baby Boomers are not going into retirement quietly. Australians work well into their later years: 5 per cent of males and 2 per cent of females over 85 are in the labour force, and 21 per cent of males and 10 per cent of females aged 65 to 69 works.

They are staying involved with their families and becoming the central points of our modern communities. Many Baby Boomers report both being healthy and happy, as do their parents - with 72 per cent of males and 60 per cent of females aged 85 and over reporting that they had good, very good or excellent health.

Many of them are reinventing retirement as a lifestyle choice and do not correlate it with the ageing process. It is just a time of life and for many – the time of their life!

Currently, about 17 per cent of people aged 65 years and over donate time to voluntary organisations, as the first wave of Baby Boomers retire in 2006, who knows if that statistic will grow. Remember Baby Boomers also invented the "ME" generation and are far less likely to sacrifice than their parents.

A Baby Boomer is far more likely to do other forms of “non-traditional” volunteering to help their children and families cope with higher costs of living and the need for most families to have a double income. Volunteering for Baby Boomers will probably to take the form of unpaid services to family, friends and neighbours.