The baby boomer birth years play a significant role in our society today. In fact, current statistics show that there are about 76 million baby boomers in the United States today, which makes up about 29% of the population. It is no wonder that this demographic affects everything from how policy is made in congress to what retailers are currently selling. The baby boomer birth years have helped shaped the last half of the 20th century and will continue to do so well into the middle of this century, it appears.

Defining the Baby Boomer Birth Years
There is no hard and fast definition for baby boomers, and the specifics can vary somewhat, depending on where your information is coming from. However, a general consensus is that the baby boomer birth years come on and between the years 1946 and 1964. While it is only 18 short years in our country's history, the years of the baby boomer decade and more have had significant impact on what our country is today.

If you take these baby boomer birth years as accurate, you can see that the baby boomer generation is now between the ages of 45 and 63. As the demographic ages, the needs of this group are fluctuating. Instead of purchasing houses in the suburbs and supplying the needs of their children, this generation is busy preparing for retirement and doing everything possible to combat the aging process. As the needs of the baby boomers have changed, our retail industry, financial sector and government have risen to the call of this demographic.

Two Groups in a Single Demographic
The baby boomer birth years are often divided into two specific groups. The first of the baby boomer birth years involved people born right after World War II. Their parents still held to traditional values, and major events like the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had a major impact on them. The later baby boomer birth years gave rise to a generation that was more or less untouched by those events and others like Watergate and Vietnam. This generation grew up on rock and roll and drugs were commonplace by the time these baby boomers became young adults.

The baby boomer birth years had a definite impact on the shaping of our recent history, whether good or bad. Those generations continue to play a major role on the evolution of our country and will continue to do so for many years to come.