[Dion]

The Baby Boom and the Future of the Economy:

Turner explains that the big changes will be due to the fact that the ratio between the number of working people to the number of retired people will change dramatically over the next few decades:

When most boomers were in their teens, there were six Canadians like them, under the age of 20, for every person over 65. Today there are about three young people for every senior. By 2020, the ratio will be even more frightening. THis will have profound consequences on our entire society. (80)

Demographic changes will have a major impact on the ratio of retirees to workers; the ratio of the number of people ages 65 and over to the number ages 20 to 64 is expected to grow from about 20% in 1997 to 41% in 2050. (83)

These demographic changes will have both macroeconomic as well as microeconomic impacts. With so few people of working age, we should that wages will rise as employers fight to retain the small pool of labor available. This also implies that unemployment should be fairly low. However taxes will also have to be quite high to pay for all the services that seniors require such as government pensions and Medicare.

http://economics.about.com/od/health.../baby_boom.htm