Not an easy sell: unlike previous generations, the Baby Boomer won't be as easy a draw to your long term care facility.

With the graying of the Baby Boomer, the long term care industry can expect a whole wealth of business--and responsibility--making its way through their facility doors for years to come.

Or can it?

The Baby Boomer's advancing age won't exactly mean a boom in business for long term care facilities--at least not at first, according to industry experts. Encouraging or convincing the Boomer to check in to your assisted living facility or continuing care retirement center will require some work, because:

* They wen't slow down. For various reasons, Baby Boomers will not settle into their golden years. Unlike their predecessors, who may well have already reserved a spot in their favorite retirement facility by the time they were the age Boomers are now, most Boomers see themselves working until they are in their late sixties or beyond. "Retirement, as we know it, is disappearing," says Roger Herman, a futurist with The Herman Group in Greensboro, N.C. "Relatively few people will enjoy full retirement, but many will find new ways to enjoy partial retirement--a different kind of slowing down."

Boomers won't slow down in part due to their own desires--"this generation has a core value of being productive members of society," Herman says--and partially out of financial necessity. Unlike their predecessors, Boomers have set less aside for old age and have been particularly hard-hit by the slow economy of recent years. "Retirement will be out of the question for those who have not saved enough to pay their way," Herman says. "They'll have to continue working to pay the bills. The stock market drop (also) made this decision for a lot of retirement-bound workers."

* Home is where the heart is. So you think today's seniors are ambivalent about leaving their homes for long term care? Imagine the "Me Generation" and its fixation toward staying put. When preparing his book The Maturing Marketplace: Buying Habits of Baby Boomers and the Parents, author George P. Moschis noted that twice as many Baby Boomers surveyed said they planned to move into or stay in a single-family home upon reaching "old" age, compared to today's seniors.

Those who did plan to move into some other type of housing gave a myriad of reasons for leaving their longtime nest, including an unwillingness or inability to do household chores, reduction in housing costs, increased access to social contact and activities, to be closer to relatives, and lack of desire to live at home after losing a spouse.

* "I'm net old yet." Boomers are the eternally ageless, according to Mike Ogden, president of Pipeline Marketing in Kansas City, Mo. He notes that this was the first generation to discover youth-preserving tactics such as health clubs, healthy diets and plastic surgery--habits they're not willing to give up as they go gray. Boomers, Ogden says, will "go kicking and screaming into old age."

The thought of needing to live in a long term care facility may take the ever-vibrant--and stubborn--Boomers by surprise. Combined with the fact that the U.S. population is living longer--Baby Boomers had an average life expectancy of 68 when they were born, while the nation's overall life expectancy today stands at 79--it may be quite a while before the long term care industry truly begins to work with these first elders of the 21st century.

Still, no one remains a "kid" forever. "Up until now, [Boomers] have remained unconcerned with aging and retirement," says Fernando Torres-Gil, author of The New Aging. Politics and Change in America. "They have thought of themselves as ever-youthful. But the Baby Boomers' rendezvous with destiny is around the corner."

LEAVING HOME

Reason given by Baby Boomers and Seniors (age 65-plus for choosing a
long term care facility over in-home care (percentage shown is number of
respondents who think that reason is important):

Reason:                            Baby Boomers   Seniors
Loss of spouse                     81.0%          65.1%
Unwilling/unable to do chores      36.0%          34.4%
To reduce housing costs            74.9%          48.5%
To be closer to relatives          71.5%          49.8%
Need for continuous health care     5.6%           9.0%
To have access to personal care     8.3%          12.2%
To have more social contacts       40.5%          28.2%
To have freedom and independence   83.9%          68.3%

Source: The Maturing Marketplace: Buying Habits of Baby Boomers and Their Parents