Where, how do older Aussies live?

A report, released recently by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), has shown where people aged 65 years and over lived in 2011 and the activities they participated in.

The report titled, Where and how do Australia’s Older People live? is the latest in a number of analytical articles based on the 2011 Census data.

It focussed on the 14% of Australians (3.1 million people) aged 65 years and over in 2011 – where they lived and the activities they participated in, including paid work and caring for children.

The report revealed that about 37% of people aged 65 years and over engaged in either paid or voluntary work or provided unpaid child care or care for a person with a disability, long term illness or a problem related to old age.

Over half of those aged 65-69 years (55%), engaged in at least one of these activities and 42% of those aged 70-74 years. Generally, involvement in these activities declined with age, with 7% of people aged 90 years and over, participating in one or more of  these activities.

Census director, Sue Taylor, said that according to the 2011 Census, 333,000 people over the age of 65 years were in the labour force in 2011 with most of these being employed.

“Census results show a higher proportion of men over 65 years were in the labour force (17%) than women of this age (8%),” Ms Taylor said.

“With increasing age, there was a steady decline in the proportion of people employed and for those aged 80 years and over, less than 2% were employed.”

Older Australians are also a particularly important source of volunteers as they are highly committed and bring with them life experience and valuable skills.

The Census found that nearly one quarter (24%) of both 65-69 year olds and of 70-74 year olds spent time doing voluntary work.

In the two weeks prior to Census night in August 2011, 12% of older people (320,100) provided unpaid care or assistance with daily activities to another person because of their disability, long term illness or problems related to old age.

The report also found that in 2011 over half of all people aged 65 years and over lived in a private dwelling with their spouse or partner (56%). Another quarter of older Australians lived alone and a further 8% lived with other relatives, such as their children.