Why baby boomers will NOT offer a gold mine for financial services

If your business strategy depends heavily on Baby Boomer-driven rapid growth in the number of retirees, it’s time to re-think your approach.

That’s according to “The Baby Boomer Retirement Fallacy and What It Means to You,” which appears on a blog on the Harvard Business Publishing website.

Over the next 25 years, the number of retirees will grow at a rate of zero to 4% per annum, according to Kevin P. Coyne and Shawn T. Coyne, the management consultants who coauthored the blog post. The Coynes say the hype around Baby Boomer retirement fails to take into account the fact that people are staying in the work force later in life.

They’re selling versions of their study, “Smaller than You Thought: Estimates of the Future Size and Growth Rate of the Retirement Market in the United States” for prices ranging from $950 to $2,850.