A survey of baby boomers has turned widely held predictions of a coming skills gap on its head. The report will show that older people have little intention of putting their feet up at 65 and that the new "old" is 81.

Massey MBA mature student Sharon Buckland organised the online survey of people born between 1946 and 1964 as part of her course work. In all, 1162 people took part during August and the findings, says Buckland, lets Gen Ys off the hook as their taxes won't necessarily have to fund pension payments to their parents. The oldies will be doing it for themselves.

Buckland says there are more than a million baby boomers in New Zealand who will start turning 65 within the next couple of years and that predictions have typically been that they will place huge financial pressure on the Government and employers.

"All of the projections that we have in the public arena are based around the idea that 65 equals retirement, that retirement is desirable and that retirement and work are mutually exclusive," says Buckland. "And the current thinking is based on the idea that you can predict the future behaviour of baby boomers by looking at the behaviour of the generation before them.

"But baby boomers have never acted like their parents. So why anyone would put in place a whole bunch of social planning that they were suddenly going to do so now is beyond my understanding."

Buckland says the present thinking about baby boomers retiring, being a burden on the state, a drain on the health system and creating a nightmare for employers is all wrong.

"There's not too many Gen Xs around to replace the boomers and the Gen Ys just don't want to work ... so the sky is not going to fall in during the next 20 years," says Buckland.

"Baby boomers have no intention of retiring and are looking forward to working for 15 to 20 years past retirement age. They are fitter, better educated and more prepared for this part of their lives than any other generation before them. They don't feel old so why should they retire?"

Buckland says when baby boomers entered the workforce during the 1970s there was a good reason to push the old guard out of the workforce, but that pressure doesn't exist today.

"In the 1970s there were so many young people needing jobs that the baby boomer bulge was creating problems _ in the end older workers moved on so young people could start to make progress," says Buckland.

"But because there is a skills gap and a shortage of people today, there is nothing pushing baby boomers into retirement. And they have so many benefits to staying in the workforce _ not least of which is that they have a standard of living they want to maintain."

Buckland says if baby boomers aren't planning to retire then it follows that they will have little interest in retirement planning. That's something that may cause the financial services industry some concern.

"According to my survey baby boomers don't see retirement as one of their life aspirations, so why have retirement plans, why would they make financial provisions?" she says. "Baby boomers are not the retiring sort _ they are not worried about getting older and 80 per cent of those in the survey say age is a state of mind."