Baby boomers are feeling the financial pain of the bad economy and focusing more attention on their retirement planning, a new survey of financial service professionals found.

Three-quarters (77%) of respondents indicated the effects of the downturn in the economy were affecting their baby boomer clients the most. At the same time, however, 73% of those surveyed said their boomer clients are now more focused on financial planning than other generations, according to the study for the Partnership for Retirement Education and Planning, a coalition of 11 non-profit organizations representing more than 200,000 financial service professionals.

“The current economic downturn has hit at a bad time for people who are in their late 50s or early 60s and haven’t prepared for the future,” says Philip E. Harriman, past president of the Million Dollar Round Table, an international, non-profit association of more than 39,000 financial service professionals, in a prepared statement. “With a simultaneous strain on employment, home values and investments, these Boomers are being hit harder now than generations older or younger. If there is a silver lining in this dark cloud, perhaps this is a wake-up call for Boomers to get busy managing their financial well-being.”

Boomers have neglected planning because they don’t fully understand the value (a barrier cited by 78% of respondents) and they are embarrassed that they haven’t accumulated more assets (mentioned by 70% of respondents) and thus ignore the problem.