For over 20 years, the popular press has been trumpeting the pending and imminent disaster that is 'the ageing of the Australian population'. We are told that our hospitals are filling up with 'sick old people', the demand for aged care services will drain resources from all other areas of social service, and the need to pay pensions (or repay investments in superannuation) will bring the nation to its knees. "The ageing of the 'baby boomer' generation is portrayed as something akin to a horror movie."
This essay by Diane Gibson, is the fifth in a series of essays based on data from the 2006 Census, produced in cooperation with the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. It identifies the population is ageing and we will need to change and we will need to learn new individual behaviours and identify and implement changes in our health, social and economic systems.To see the full paper click here.
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