Much More Information Needed on Aged Care and Boomers

Although the ageing of Australia’s 5.5 Million baby boomers is discussed widely there appears to be little research knowledge about the actual expectations of boomers themselves.

It’s widely acknowledged that for the next three decades the BB generation will drive Australian policies in terms of retirement incomes, health costs, and aged care, and increasingly social policy is emphasizing individual and family responsibility, rather than State responsibility to meet old age needs. Yet according to Susan Quine and Stacy Carter of the School of Public Health, Sydney University, there is “little research on whether this change in emphasis is reasonable and workable in the light of baby boomers expectations and plans for their old age”.

Writing in the Australasian Journal on Ageing, March 2006, the authors state that the baby boomers “distinctive life histories raise important questions, such as will this wealthier and better-educated generation have different and higher expectations as they age than previous generations of Australians? How prepared are they now in mid-life for the next stage of their lives; retirement and old age?

The important research questions that need urgent responses, according to Quine and Carter, need to cover health and care needs, housing, and expectations about work and income in the 60s and 70s aged groups. Baby boomers should also be asked which authority they believe should accept responsibility for the BBs’ future care, housing, and income requirements.

The authors found that there was much more research published on health and housing, and that the issue of responsibility for baby boomers’ welfare in old age is largely unexplored. The existing findings consisted “more of opinion than empirical findings”, and it would be essential in future to obtain direct information from baby boomers to fill the gaps.