MYTH: Boomers are married empty nesters.

FACTS: Only about one in four baby boomers (the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964) is married with adult children who already live on their own. In fact, in a recent survey of 17,000 boomers conducted by Focalyst and supported by AARP Services Inc., about 37 percent still have children under 18 living at home, while 5 million have adult children who have moved back home in the past year.

Still others have refilled their nests with their older parents. Although we usually think of boomers as family people, a third of them—more than 23 million—are single.

Eight million of these singles have never married, 4 million are living with a partner but are not married, and the rest are widowed, divorced or separated.