Aged Care in Western Society-Background Australia, like the US, UK and most other European/western countries had a baby boom after World War 2 which created a demographic “blip” in our societies, changing every component of life as they approached different stages of the life cycle. Eg. hospitals, schools, universities, jobs, accommodation etc. It is no secret that they are now approaching retirement with the peak expected around 2015 - 2020. (70-75 years after WW2). Hence there is another major market requirement in all our countries to provide the services and infrastructure to look after the huge population of people. The other interesting thing is that there has been no significant planning for this (particularly in Australia) where previously the government would pay the bills, however this cannot continue or the country will go broke. We use an analogy to explain the western dilemma: What we have as existing aged care/retirement infrastructure today is akin to a garden hose. What is coming with the baby boomers is the size of a basketball and there has been no real forward planning!!!  The big difference now is this generation is cashed up, and knows what they want, and will not put up with what the previous generation put up with!  We build world class facilities and we build what people want!