What is the cost of dying?

Like everything else, the cost of dying is increasing as much as the rising cost of living.  A study commissioned by Australian Seniors and CoreData in August 2023, The Cost of Death Report 2.0 found that estimated funeral costs have increased by more than 20% for burials and cremations since 2019. In 2023, the average burial costs $11,039, compared to $9,055 in 2019. Similarly, the average cremation now costs $8,045, compared to $6,334 in 2019.

The study revealed that we are paying up to $18,652 for a basic burial funeral, and up to $5,953 for a basic cremation funeral. This is due to the rising costs of funeral services – including embalming, viewing, transportation, and professional fees – along with the cost of coffins and burial plots to name a few.

A third of the responders who recently helped pay for a funeral experienced some form of financial hardship. Two-thirds of those who experienced financial hardship said that it took months to financially recover.

Saying goodbye to those we hold dear should be a time of love and unity. Regrettably, this is not always the case.  It’s no secret that funerals can exact a heavy financial toll, but they can also create tension between family and friends. Unfortunately, more than a third of responders encountered arguments with loved ones over funeral finances, adding weight to an already heavy situation.

Further, the study suggests that a trend is emerging where families are pressuring us to spend more on funerals than initially planned, a trend which has more than doubled since 2019.

Consequently, it seems our funeral preferences are changing. Many of us are now opting for simpler services (26%), being more cost-conscious (24%), and choosing cremations or cheaper alternatives to traditional burials (22%). Some of us are even getting creative and considering a DIY funeral (9%).

Tradition is taking a back seat as we focus less on mourning and more on celebrating life. In fact, most (83%) of us now prefer the celebratory approach. We want a funeral that reflects us – who we are and what makes us, us. An example of this are our changing music preferences, moving away from conventional funeral songs. Instead, iconic artists like Elvis Presley, Queen, Frank Sinatra, and Elton John emerged as the most common choices.

On the other hand, many of us are yet to discuss our wishes with loved ones. In fact, only 1 in 2 (53%) of us have made our families aware of our funeral preferences. For those of us who are yet to have this conversation, it’s important that we communicate our funeral wishes to our nearest and dearest to ensure we receive the farewell we desire.

Australian Seniors:  The Cost of Death 2.0 Report, November 2023, https://www.seniors.com.au/documents/australian-seniors-series-cost-of-death-report-2023-whitepaper.pdf

 

Retirees face increased cost of living driven by global factors, but superannuation is buffering the impact, says ASFA

As skyrocketing inflation pressurises household budgets worldwide, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (ASFA) says Australian retirees stand in stark contrast to their overseas counterparts who do not have the safety net provided by compulsory superannuation.

ASFA Deputy CEO, Glen McCrea says despite the current pressure on household budgets, Australian retirees are in a stronger retirement position than their global peers because of Australia’s robust superannuation system and retirement pillar settings.

“In contrast, the age pension remains affordable for the government in Australia where, in aggregate, retirees on average have larger private retirement savings balances than in most countries in the world. This helps cover costs during tougher times, providing a brighter outlook for Australian retirees than is the case for their international counterparts,” said Mr McCrea.

While the major categories of expenditure including food, transport and energy have all increased over the past quarter, analysis of those increases reveals that the causes lie mainly outside Australia. 

The ASFA Retirement Standard September Quarter 2022 figures have risen in lockstep with quarterly inflation. Couples aged around 65 living a comfortable retirement now need to spend $68,014 per year and singles $48,266, both up by 1.9 per cent on the previous quarter.  The ASFA Comfortable budget assumes one major trip overseas every seven years.

Over the year to September 2022, the amount needed for a single person to fund a comfortable retirement has risen by 6.7 per cent and for a couple by 6.6 per cent, slightly lower than the current CPI of 7.3 per cent.

Strong price rises were recorded across all food and non-food grocery products in the September quarter. These increases reflected a range of price pressures including supply chain disruptions, weather-related events, such as flooding, and increased transport and input costs.

In the 12 months to the September quarter fruit and vegetables prices rose 16.2% and dairy products increased 12.1%. Dairy and related products rose 6.8% due to higher milk prices.

Over the year to the September quarter, imported inflation saw oils and fats up 19.3%, coffee up 10.7% and gas 16.6% and automotive fuel 18.0%. These prices are set to remain high while geopolitical concerns persist.

Increased demand, high fuel prices and capacity constraints saw domestic travel and accommodation up 10.8% over the year and international travel and accommodation up 25.3%.

Meals out and take away foods rose 2.9% due to rising input costs and ongoing supply and labour shortages. Alcohol rose 1.4% due to the increase in the bi-annual excise tax for alcohol on 1 August.

Details for the various updated budgets follow.

Table 1: Budgets for various households and living standards for those aged around 65 (September quarter 2022, national)

Household typeSingle ModestCouple ModestSingle ComfortableCouple Comfortable
Housing – ongoing only$109.24$122.66$128.37$133.94
Energy$35.05$47.08$44.41$55.07
Food$104.04$192.89$134.52$233.80
Clothing$20.86$39.64$27.86$51.88
Household goods and services$37.12$43.51$82.45$101.52
Health$53.33$103.11$109.02$204.32
Transport$103.93$110.70$169.82$183.93
Leisure$104.30$163.73$205.69$309.20
Communications$17.99$20.27$22.50$29.29
Total per week$585.86$843.57$924.64$1,302.95
Total per year$30,582$44,034$48,266$68,014

Table 2: Budgets for various households and living standards for those aged around 85 (September quarter 2022, national)

Household typeSingle ModestCouple ModestSingle ComfortableCouple Comfortable
Housing – ongoing only$109.24$122.66$128.37$133.94
Energy$35.05$47.08$44.41$55.07
Food$104.04$192.89$134.52$233.80
Clothing$20.86$39.64$27.86$51.88
Household goods and services$54.05$77.78$160.70$192.51
Health$93.02$129.74$153.58$241.95
Transport$41.68$52.09$46.88$57.30
Leisure$67.46$96.70$140.39$196.53
Communications$17.99$20.27$22.50$29.29
Total per week$543.65$778.84$859.21$1,192.28
Total per year$28,379$40,656$44,851$62,237
The figures in each case assume that the retiree/s own their own home and relate to expenditure by the household. This can be greater than household income after income tax where there is a drawdown on capital over the period of retirement. All calculations are weekly, unless otherwise stated. Annual figure is 52.2 times the weekly figure.

More information

Costs and summary figures can be accessed via the ASFA website, https://www.superannuation.asn.au/media/media-releases/2022/media-release-17-november-2022

FIRST NATIONAL STUDY FINDS MORE ELDER ABUSE

In the year prior to the first national survey conducted into elder abuse, one in six older Australians reported they had experienced abuse most often committed by family members.

The National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study (NEAPS) survey, carried out between February and May 2020, showed that the most common subtype was psychological abuse (12%), followed by neglect (3%), financial abuse (2%), physical abuse (2%) and sexual abuse (1%). Some of the 7,000 participants aged over 65 years reported several types of abuse occurring, usually psychological abuse and neglect.

Types of elder abuse

Nearly one in five elder abuse perpetrators are children (18%), or their partners or grandchildren and about one in 10 elder abuse perpetrators are intimate partners. Children (most often, sons) are most likely to perpetrate financial abuse as well as friends and service providers.

Children are also the largest group of perpetrators of psychological and physical abuse while friends, acquaintances and spouses were most likely to perpetrate sexual abuse.
Children and intimate partners are both significant perpetrator groups (24-25% for each) of neglect. Professional carers (14%) and service providers (13%) are bigger perpetrator groups for neglect than for other abuse subtypes.

Psychological abuse is not always recognized by either victims or perpetrators. It includes insulting, belittling or threatening behaviour towards a person. Family and friends are the best protection for a person experiencing abuse rather than the person who is unlikely to directly confront the perpetrator.

Factors that increase risk of abuse

While women were slightly more likely to be the subject of abuse than men, other factors increased the risk of experiencing abuse, namely, being poorer, being single, separated or divorced and living in rented housing or owning a house with a debt against it. Having poor physical or psychological health also increased the risk of experiencing abuse.

The study did not include people living in aged care or suffering cognitive decline which could increase the identified prevalence of elder abuse in the community.
The federal government has announced additional funding to build on the National Plan to Respond to the Abuse of Older People. This announcement follows on from recommendations made by the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission to increase funding to home care packages and create new training places for aged care staff.

AIFS, National Elder Abuse Prevalence Study, https://aifs.gov.au/publications/national-elder-abuse-prevalence-study

Australia’s health by socio-economic status

However you describe it, being poor, disadvantaged, or living in a low socioeconomic area is more likely to make you more susceptible to preventable chronic diseases such as heart disease, arthritis and diabetes.

Australia’s Health Tracker by Socioeconomic Status 2021 reports on the health status of Australians based on their socioeconomic standard which the study has found has a major impact on people’s health. Families and individuals with limited resources not only have more chronic disease, they are at greater risk of dying prematurely as a result of chronic health conditions. People living with mental ill-health are less likely to participate in employment, which in itself, is associated with an improvement in general mental health levels.

The ten million people living in the 40% of communities with lower and lowest socioeconomic status have much higher rates of preventable cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases than others in the population. These communities also have the highest rates of suicide throughout the nation.

Risk factors that are likely to contribute to this higher rate of illness and premature death include:
• Physical inactivity
• Lifetime alcohol consumption
• Daily tobacco use
• Unemployment as a result of mental health issues.

These health disparities within the Australian population are persistent despite considerable policy reform and efforts to improve services in recent decades. The targets for a healthier Australia were developed by the Australian Health Policy Collaboration, a national network of leading health experts and organisations. The Collaboration has worked with the support of the Mitchell Institute, Victoria University since 2014 to influence public and policy awareness and action to reduce high rates of preventable chronic disease in the Australian population.

The report sets health targets for medical conditions such as:
Obesity – Obesity is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, asthma, back pain and some cancers.
High cholesterol – High levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol are a risk factor for heart disease. National data from 2011-12 is the most recent available data and indicated that close to one-third of all socioeconomic groups were estimated to have high cholesterol levels.
High blood pressure – Rates of reported high blood pressure are relatively consistent across socioeconomic groups. High blood pressure is often caused by poor diet, physical inactivity, obesity and excessive alcohol consumption. It is a risk factor for chronic conditions including stroke, heart diseases, and chronic kidney disease
Diabetes – Hospitalisations and deaths related to diabetes are, respectively, 2 and 2.3 times as high in the lowest socioeconomic communities compared to the highest.

Australia’s Health Tracker by Socioeconomic Status 2021 report, The Mitchell Institute at Victoria University. Australia’s Health Tracker by Socioeconomic Status 2021 report

Retirement village exit rules changed

New legislation means that NSW retirement village contracts will now include a timeframe that ensures timely payments for a former resident’s exit entitlements.

These changes apply only to registered interest holders with a long-term registered lease that gives them at least 50% of any capital gain.

They do not apply to:
• registered interest holders who own a lot in a strata or community scheme village or own shares in a company title or trust village that gives them their resident right; or
• unregistered interest holders.

New retirement village laws started in January 2021. The changes reflect complaints made about how exit entitlements were previously managed and provide a timeframe for former residents to receive their exit entitlements. Summarised, the changes:
• enable residents to receive exit entitlement money before their unit sells (if the sale has been ‘unreasonably delayed’);
• provide an option for residents to fund their move into aged care by accessing part of their estimated exit entitlement money;
• ensure residents no longer have to pay ongoing charges for general services for more than 42 days after they leave the retirement village (commences on 1 July 2021 onwards).

New legislation has been introduced which affects existing and all new retirement village contracts. Previously registered interest holders had to wait until a new resident either moved into or leased their old unit before they were able to receive their share of the sale proceeds (the “exit entitlements”). This could mean that if the village operator delayed the sale of a unit after the resident left, the former might not receive their exit entitlements for anywhere between two and five years.

Under the new legislation, a registered interest holder can apply to the Secretary of the Department of Finance, Services and Innovation for an exit entitlement order directing the village operator to pay the exit entitlements to the former resident even though the unit has not sold. The order can require payment after six months for Sydney metropolitan, Wollongong and Blue Mountains residences and within one year anywhere else in NSW. This order will only be made if the village operator has “unreasonably delayed” the sale considering the time taken to refurbish the unit and whether the operator as selling agent has performed all their duties within reasonable time.

Such an application can only be made by a former resident but not their estate. If the order is made, the exit entitlement must be paid with 30 days of the order.

If the registered interest holder moves out of the retirement village into a residential aged care facility and has not received their exit entitlement, the resident may ask that the operator make one or more daily accommodation payments to the facility on behalf of the resident within 28 days of the resident’s request. As more than 60% of residents move directly into aged care, their move can be delayed if they do not have access to funds to pay the daily accommodation payments to the facility and the unit does not sell quickly. These amendments are intended to make the transfer easier for residents and family members.

For more detail, see Fair Trading website, https://www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au/about-fair-trading/legislation-and-publications/changes-to-legislation/changes-to-retirement-village-laws

Super in the time of pandemic

Is our retirement system good enough? Superannuation should enable all people to have an adequate standard of living when retired, according to the Retirement Income Review into the Australian retirement system. The system should not just provide a means for wealthy people to become wealthier, with the help of generous tax concessions.

The Review found that two groups have high levels of financial stress compared to people below age 65: those renting in retirement and those who are involuntarily retired before age pension eligibility age. Retirees who rent in the private rental market are likely to live in poverty and those early retirees living on JobSeeker payments are the worst affected. Even with the age pension and additional rental assistance, these retirees experienced higher levels of financial stress and poverty than the rest of the population.

Following 426 submissions and meetings with 100 stakeholders, Treasury has released the Review’s Final Report which makes findings on how the superannuation system interacts with the age pension, the aged care system and the tax concessions that benefit high wealth individuals.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been incredibly disruptive to the livelihoods of individuals and to businesses on a global scale. Less obviously, most people’s retirement savings also have decreased significantly over the past year. Retirees who rely on their super to top up age pension payments remain concerned that their super investments have been affected by market volatility, leading them to worry that their loss in savings will have long-term effects.

Retirement savings and owning your own home are the most important ways to ensure that people have a buffer in retirement. High rates of home ownership in Australia reduces housing costs in retirement and boosts living standards. Additionally, their home is an asset that they can sell to provide a deposit for aged care or for additional funds if necessary.

While the age pension helps to offset inequities in retirement, its “bare bones” level of income does not provide enough to provide for those without other income. In particular, it does little to improve the situation of disadvantaged groups such as women, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and those with disabilities who have not been able to accumulate sufficient retirement savings in their working life.

One of Treasury’s first observations was that the current retirement system is complex and poorly understood by many people, both before and during retirement. Then more complications arise when it interacts with the aged care and tax system.

The Report suggested some changes to the retirement system to improve its fairness such as:
• removing the $450 per month income threshold before the superannuation guarantee can be paid;
• paying superannuation while on employer paid parental leave, and
• ensuring that all employees are paid the benefits to which they are entitled.

Australian superannuation funds hold $2.9 trillion of assets invested in local and overseas financial markets. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic shutdowns of businesses and associated job losses, superannuation proved a welcome financial resource for many who had lost their employment. Over 4 million applicants were able to access their super under the Early Release scheme to supplement their wages or JobSeeker allowances. In total $37.4 billion was paid out in the June 2020 quarter to applicants, a 77.7% increase from the March 2020 quarter.

Many commentators were concerned that low to middle income earners who accessed their super early would be severely disadvantaged in being able to accumulate sufficient funds for their retirement as well as making them more likely to be reliant on the age pension. The debate about allowing people to access their super to fund a deposit for a house has not been resolved with arguments on both sides. In my opinion, too many people have drawn on their super in ways that provided only a temporary benefit now, while suffering a substantial long-term loss to their level of super when they retire.

I look forward to the government’s response – will they improve the system for the most disadvantaged people in the retirement system? Much more needs to be done.

Treasury, 20/11/20, Retirement Income Review – Final Report, https://treasury.gov.au/publication/p2020-100554

Author talk at Dennis Johnson Library Stanhope Gardens

Come along to join in the retirement conversation on

Join Alice and have a retirement conversation.
Saturday, 24 October 2020 at 1:30 pm – 3:00 pm.
At the Dennis Johnson Library, Cnr Stanhope Parkway & Sentry Drive, Stanhope Gardens, NSW 2768

Women experience retirement differently to men. Women generally live longer, have less money and volunteer more than their male counterparts. A practicing lawyer for over 30 years, Alice Mantel encourages making better decisions, giving advice on topics such as:

Inspiring women to make the most of their retirement opportunities, Every Woman’s Guide to Retirement encourages an active, connected lifestyle, staying healthy, lifelong learning, de-cluttering, and even online dating to make the most of this time.

The Economic Impacts of Ageism

Emma Dawson, Executive Director, Per Capita made this speech to the COTA Australia National Policy Forum at the National Press Club, Canberra on 13 June 2019. She makes some an excellent points about the effects of ageism on older people finding and retaining work and the growing number of older women in poverty.

Her speech follows:
I begin by acknowledging that we meet today on the land of the Ngunnawal people, and pay respects to their elders past, present and emerging. This is, and always will be, Aboriginal land, land which was never ceded.

Thank you to COTA and the Benevolent Society for inviting me to speak to you today about the economic impacts of ageism. Per Capita has long standing and valued relationships with both of you, of course, and we, like all Australians, greatly value the work you do to advocate for older people and improve the lives of all our citizens.

It’s a particular privilege for me to be a member of the steering committee for the “Every Age Counts” campaign, which is doing such important work combatting ageism in Australia. As has often been noted, Ageism seems to be the last remaining socially accepted form of prejudice, so the work being done by Kirsty, Marlene, Kerry, Sue and the team, and the leadership of Robert Tickner, is so important.

And Ageism is more than insulting; like all forms of entrenched and widespread prejudice, it has real and measurable effects on people’s wellbeing – on their mental and physical health, their social connectedness and their economic security.

The economic impact of Ageism may be the least well understood of these effects, but in fact it influences all the other outcomes of the prejudice that older people experience in our society.

That is, it is in large part Ageism in our economic systems that leads to the negative health and social experiences of older people in Australia.

The root of the problem can be found in the dominant narrative in our political and social discourse that frames ageing as almost entirely a negative experience.

Western culture is one that celebrates youth. Ageing is seen as a decline, with little to recommend it. Of course, other cultures – not least that of our First Nations people – are much better at valuing and respecting elders, but white, European culture has almost completely lost the ability to recognise the positive aspects of ageing.

It’s rare for us to hear stories in the national media or public debate about the benefits of ageing – the getting of wisdom, the accumulation of experience, the growth of resilience.

The sense of contentedness that comes with raising a family or ticking off career goals. The leaving behind of the race to prove oneself to people who really don’t matter.

These are all things that people gain as they age, and – with the exception of a few enlightened social commentators – we don’t hear much about these things at all.

Instead, we hear about the things people LOSE as they age: their looks; their agility; their memories; their independence; their productivity.

The fact is, we live in a political system that lauds economic productivity as the most important contribution humans can make to society.

So when a group of people is repeatedly dismissed as declining in productivity by virtue of the fact that they are getting older, we end up with a pervasive narrative that older people are an economic burden on the rest of us.

This infiltrates economic and social policy making. The entrenched assumption that older people take much more from our economy and our society than they give to it leads to the creation of policies and the entrenchment of social attitudes that reinforce the barriers to social and economic participation.

That is, the assumption that older people are a burden on society creates an economic system in which older people are, in many interrelated ways, forced into BEING a burden – prevented by systematic prejudices from contributing to their full capacity, from fully exercising their right to live a self-determined, self-reliant life – and from having the contributions they do make recognised and valued as they should be.

But let me step back and give you some statistics.

Every five years, the Department of Treasury and Finance releases the Intergenerational Report – that in itself shows that we frame ageing and intergenerational relationships through an economic lens.

With another report due next year, the 2015 report provides the most up-to-date data available for the projected demographic changes of the next forty years – out to 2055.

The report tells us that Australians will live longer and continue to have one of the longest life expectancies in the world.

There are projected to be around 40,000 people aged over 100. This is a dramatic increase, well over three hundred times the 122 Australians who marked their centenary in 1974.

There will be more than double the number of Australians aged over 65 than there are today, and nearly two million Australians, or 4.9 per cent of the population, will be aged 85 and over – I hope to be one of them!

This all sounds like very good news. But the report is focused on the economic impacts of this demographic change for Australia’s federal budget, and sounds a warning that, on current policy settings, we face, quote, “an unequivocal deterioration in fiscal sustainability”.

In other words, this many older people will send Australia broke unless we change our policy settings to adapt to an ageing population.

A big part of this challenge will be reframing how we view ageing, and removing Ageism and the concept of older people as a burden from the policy process and our economic systems.

So let’s take an honest look at the cost and contribution of older people to Australia’s society and economy.

It’s true that, at just over 44 billion dollars annually, the age pension is the largest social security spending measure on the government’s books.

Yes, it’s a lot of money.

But consider this. The Australian Institute of Family Studies estimated the value of unpaid caring and other voluntary work by people aged over 65 at around 39 billion dollars each year – and those figures are 15 years old. The figure is likely to be significantly higher today.

There isn’t nearly enough analysis of the value of unpaid work done in our society, but on those 15 year old figures alone, and assuming the likely increase in the years since, we can see that the cost of the age pension is easily offset by the unpaid work older people contribute to our economy.

Along with women, who undertake the vast majority of unpaid care work throughout their lives, older people, men included, make a disproportionate contribution to our society and economy by caring for grandchildren, caring for spouses and other relatives, and volunteering in their communities.

Of course, the costs of age pensions and aged care services are likely to rise in line with a greater proportion of people aged over 65, and especially over 85, in future.

Under current policy settings, Australian Government expenditure on Age and Service pensions is projected to rise as a per cent of Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, from 2.9 per cent in 2015 to 3.6 per cent in 2055 – that’s 165 billion dollars annually in today’s dollars.

But the Intergenerational Report also notes that, in the near future, not only will Australians live longer, but improvements in health mean they are more likely to remain active for longer.

So the overwhelming likelihood is that the voluntary contribution of older people will increase at least in line with, but probably in excess of, the costs of caring for older people.

I would note here that the government has committed to reintroducing the Time Use Survey from next year, and this will give us a much more accurate picture of the economic contribution made by older, so-called retired people.

This should furnish economists and policy makers with the data to help us to counter the negative narrative that older people are an economic burden on society, and quantify their contributions.

Per Capita will be undertaking economic modelling and policy work in this area through our Centre for Applied Policy In Positive Ageing which, like the Every Age Counts Campaign, is generously supported by the Wicking Trust.

Volunteering, and providing unpaid care, is one field of endeavour in which older people are less likely to encounter barriers based on ageism: our society depends on their unpaid work, so their contribution is rarely, if ever, refused.

When it comes to paid work, however, it’s a very different story – as we have heard this morning.

The retirement age is between 65 and 67 years old, but for many people, that’s no longer the age at which they stop working, but rather the age at which they can access the pension or their superannuation, or both.

65 simply isn’t what it used to be. Of course, not all workers can continue working many years beyond the traditional retirement age – those engaged in physical labour, like nurses, construction workers, agricultural workers and workers in the resource sector find their ability to continue in their jobs is often limited by injury or wear and tear.

But many more people remain physically active, and mentally acute, well into older age than was true even a generation ago.

Our retirement age, and the underpinnings of our retirement income system, were set a century ago. The fact is, today, many older people want to keep working, but are shut out of the labour market due to ageism in the workforce.

A 2017 report by the University of South Australia found that more than a third of workers aged over 50 had experienced age discrimination in the workforce, and confirmed a strong perception across society that older workers were not suitable for employment.

This followed the 2016 report by the Australian Human Rights Commission, under then age discrimination commissioner Susan Ryan, that Australia is experiencing a significant rise in long term mature-age unemployment.

The AHRC report found that the average length of time spent looking for work for unemployed people aged over 55 was 68 weeks.

That’s more than twice the length of time out of the workforce for those aged 15 – 24.

So while youth unemployment is comparably high in Australia, it tends to be a temporary experience.

For older workers thrown out of work, it can be permanent, or mean that so long is spent looking for a job that savings and assets built up over a lifetime are significantly depleted.

Particularly for women, who often take time out of the paid workforce to care for children and other relatives, getting back into work can prove almost impossible. ACOSS estimates that 49% of people living on Newstart are women aged over 45. Many of them are single mothers.

I would remind you all that the rate of Newstart is just under $40 a day.

This is a significant factor contributing to the reprehensible statistic that women over 55 are the fastest growing group of homeless people in Australia – a fact I will repeat in every speech I give on economic insecurity until it is no longer true.

Yet many older people want to work well beyond the age of 65 – and, often, they have to.

A report published just yesterday in The Conversation showed that, based on microdata from the Bureau of Statistics survey of income and housing, the number of older Australian’s carrying mortgage debt into retirement is increasing at an alarming rate.

For home owners aged 55 to 64 years, the proportion owing money on mortgages has more than tripled in just 15 years – from 14 per cent in 1990 to 47 percent in 2015.

In the same age bracket, the mortgage debt-to-income ratio has almost doubled in the same period, from 72% to 132%.

This is an economic time bomb for Australia’s retirement incomes system. The policy settings that underpin retirement incomes in Australia are predicated on the assumption that people own their houses outright.

Per Capita’s 2016 research, with the Benevolent Society and the Longevity Hub, into the Adequacy of the Age Pension, found that the group most likely to live in poverty was comprised of single pensioners who rented in the private market.

There are many intersecting reasons why people are reaching retirement age while still owing money on their homes. Most obviously is the significant and unsustainable increase in house prices over the last two decades. This means not only that people are borrowing more to buy a home, but that they must save much longer for a deposit, delaying their entry into the housing market.

To leave the data for a moment and bring a personal perspective into this – I am one of those people. I met my partner when I was 39. I had a mortgage on a one bedroom apartment but he was renting. We married within a year, and bought our current, two-bedroom apartment, and just under two years later, we had our child.

When we reach 65, we’ll still have four years to go on that mortgage. Our child will be 24 – so on current projections on the age at which middle-class kids move out of home, she’ll still be with us for up to a decade!

Fortunately, I have a much better superannuation balance than most women my age – a function of having worked in universities, where the contribution rate is 15%, and of working full time right through my thirties. So I’ll probably be able to pay the mortgage off with super.

But many older people, particularly in the next five to ten years, won’t have that option. They haven’t had compulsory super all their working lives, as I have, and if, like me, they are supporting kids at home well into their fifties, and working for an average or median wage, their ability to “salary sacrifice” into their super, or make extra repayments on their mortgage, is very limited.

So the ageism that keeps these older workers unemployed for long periods of time, particularly as traditional industries are disrupted by automation and skills sets are made obsolete by changing technologies, has real economic implications for their financial security in retirement.

It’s impossible to pay off a mortgage on the age pension.

Many will have no choice but to sell their homes and downsize into unsuitable accommodation, often outside of the communities in which they live happily.

Recent research we have undertaken at Per Capita revealed that, contrary to popular understanding, older people aren’t unreasonably insistent on staying in the family home as they age. It’s not the actual house they are attached to, but their local community – but there is a dearth of appropriate housing for people to “right-size” into within those local communities.

In the recent election campaign, we heard a lot about relatively wealthy retirees potentially losing income from tax reform policies being proposed by the opposition.

While the facts of voting patterns seem to indicate that those people who were actually going to be affected by Labor’s proposal to remove franking credit rebates for non-taxpayers actually swung towards Labor – presumably because they could afford to – the fear of losing retirement incomes seems to have been a real factor in how some people voted at that election.

This points to the helplessness many older people feel in our society when it comes to having control over their incomes and financial security.

Because the fact is that too many older working people know they won’t get another job if they lose theirs, and this is almost entirely due to ageism and the belief that older workers can’t adapt to changing workplaces.

Following the release of the Deloitte report into employment yesterday, Tim Colebatch noted on social media that half of the growth in the full-time workforce since the Global Financial Crisis has been in people aged over 50. This sounds like a good thing, but too many of these older workers are stuck in jobs with often poor conditions and wages because they are too scared to move – they know if they lose their job because their boss finds out they are looking elsewhere, they won’t get another one. Similarly, they are too frightened to ask for a pay rise in case they are let go for a younger, cheaper option. The fear of unemployment due to ageism is reducing their bargaining power. This is one of the causes of low wage growth in our economy

In fact, repeated studies, both here and overseas, have shown that older workers are more productive (they are less likely to spend time at work on Facebook!), more reliable, less likely to leave their jobs every two to five years, and bring experience and complex problem solving abilities to the workforce that have taken years to develop.

The economic benefits of hiring or retaining older workers have been quantified and demonstrated again and again, so it can only be an entrenched and unfounded prejudice that prevents employers from valuing them as they should.

So what are the economic policy shifts we need to enact to overcome the economic impacts of ageism and our inability to value the contribution of older people to society?

Firstly, we need to get the so-called “problem” in perspective. Yes, Australia’s society is ageing – societies in all developed, wealthy nations are.

But we are not ageing as rapidly as some others – Japan, for example, is facing a real crisis with more than a third of its population estimated to be over the age of 65 by 2050. This will place an impossible taxation burden on people of working age.

Japan has now announced that it will revise its immigration policies to address this – and we know that works, because it is immigration that is keeping Australia’s economy growing and keeping our population relatively young.

Secondly, we need to rethink the concept of being “old”. While certain factors of biology are inescapable – women’s fertility, for example, remains subject to the same age limits as it has for millennia – the fact is that people are able to live active lives into much older age than they were in my grandparents’ day.

The shift to a healthier, older society is one of the biggest demographic changes in our history, yet we don’t have a holistic approach to dealing with it.

Some years ago, Per Capita published a Blueprint for an Ageing Australia – we need to revisit that work and develop a whole-of-government architecture to addressing the challenges and taking advantage of the opportunities of an ageing population.

To turn to some specific policy solutions, we need to rethink our housing market. We need better options for housing for people as they age. As I mentioned earlier, older people would like to “down size” from the four-bedroom family home, but there aren’t enough “right-size” properties in their local communities, where they have friends, children and grandchildren and social networks.

We need more medium-density development in our established suburbs, and planning laws need to change to encourage this. It shouldn’t be about developers squeezing the most profit out of a quarter-acre block by cramming in three double-story townhouses with no gardens, when what people need are single-level, two and three bedroom homes with small, manageable gardens.

And we need to make it less expensive for people to leave the family home. Stamp duty is a huge barrier – state governments could consider waiving or discounting it for people over 70 – or better still, eliminating stamp duty altogether and moving gradually to a land tax, as is being done here in the ACT.

We also need to rethink our working structures. Older people should be able to transition out of full time work gradually, without losing access to age-related pensions and benefits, so that they are able to remain productive as long as they want to, need to or are able to.

Governments can do more to incentivise employers to retain older workers. While subsidised employment schemes often result in employers hiring older workers only for as long as the subsidies last, and are therefore inefficient, measures such as discounted payroll tax and other incentives should be considered to encourage employers to retain experienced older workers in favour of letting them go for younger workers on cheaper rates.

There is a role for business here too. Business should adopt “blind recruitment” policies, where CVs are submitted without gender, names (which often signal ethnicity) or ages. Studies have shown this practice significantly diversifies the candidates selected for interview.

And our tax and transfer system needs a thorough overhaul. It was good to hear, in the wake of the election campaign, the treasurer Josh Frydenberg indicate a willingness to consider implementing the recommendation of the Productivity Commission to undertake a review of retirement incomes. It is sorely needed.

The danger, following the scare campaigns around so-called “death taxes” and the mispresentation of Labor’s dividend imputation policy as a retiree tax, is that any review launched by the government won’t adequately consider all the possible options to improve people’s economic security in older age.

We must advocate for a genuinely broad-ranging review, one that looks urgently at the rate of Newstart, on which too many people are trapped between their fifties and the pension access age of 65. Our employment services should recognise the reality that people in this situation are far less likely than younger job seekers to find work, and treat them accordingly. Older people out of work often fear applying for short term or casual employment, because their benefits are cut, or they are removed from the system, only to have to re-engage from the start again at the end of a short-term contract, meaning they go through waiting periods with no income, or may incur the dreaded “robodebt”.

Employment Services in this country need a complete overhaul, and one important part is to introduce new requirements for older job seekers – allowing them to earn occasional income without reducing their benefits, for example. We are moving in the wrong direction on this – last year, the number of volunteer hours older job seekers could claim as recognised activity for income support payments was reduced. This is entirely the wrong approach.

Further, the settings of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, which should be pegged to the cost of housing; and we must reconsider the overly generous tax concessions on superannuation that disproportionately benefit the wealthy; and yes, even at dividend imputation, or franking credits.

The fact is, the cost of giving cash to people who don’t pay income tax in the form of franking credit rebates costs the federal budget more than $6 billion a year, and is predicted to rise to $11 billion over the next few years. That’s will bring it to the same cost as Newstart.

One of the reasons I kept hearing for people’s fear of that particularly controversial policy was that older people need to live off the income from their superannuation rather than draw down on the balance of their savings because they are fearful of needing the lump sum to pay for entry to an aged care home or significant health care needs in their older age.

This is a legitimate fear – once you are no longer earning, the need to protect the money you have becomes more acute.

But what if we were to invest the billions of dollars spent on giving people cash refunds into aged home care packages?

The waiting list for this much-preferred option of aged care is now around 18 months, and it’s widely acknowledged that the program is woefully underfunded and cannot keep up with demand. If we were to invest those billions of dollars currently going as gifts to wealthy non-taxpayers into guaranteed home care packages for people when they become frail, I imagine that would give many older people peace of mind and allow them to spend more of their retirement savings when they are well enough to enjoy them.

A genuine review of retirement incomes would look at the best way to spend our common wealth on giving older people real choices – the choice to continue working as long as they would like to; the choice of suitable housing in the communities they want to live in; the choice to age in place at home with appropriate care; the choice to set aside some of our collective superannuation wealth into a levy to provide discrete funding for our aged care system; and the choice to contribute to their communities and their families and have that contribution valued by the wider society.

All of this begins with us rethinking how we view ageing in our society – to stop thinking of older people as an economic burden, and start recognizing the many and varied ways they have, and do, and can continue to live a good life in our wealthy and prosperous nation.

Thank you.

Community attitudes to aged care explored

Following In-depth interviews and focus groups, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety has released a report, They look after you, you look after them: Community attitudes to ageing and aged care .

The researchers interviewed a range of focus groups to identify current community attitudes to ageing; community understanding of the aged care system and how individuals were planning for their own older age. Interviews were conducted with both younger and older people, diverse economic groups, Indigenous and culturally diverse groups and younger people with disabilities who already resided in aged care facilities.

Written before the pandemic, the report explores how people view entering an aged care facility, what their expectations were and most relevantly, what were the experiences of actual residents.

Post-Covid, the relatively negative comments of most interviewees about their fear of entering the aged care system, seems justified in light of the relatively high number of deaths in care facilities which appear to reflect the inadequate training and equipment available to care for older people.

The report found that as people became older, they were better informed about the complexities of the aged care system but they remained concerned about the cost and quality of care provided. There was a widespread, strong preference across the different age groups and communities to remain living independently as they age and making use of support to do so.

Most interviewees were critical of aged care facilities and saw them as being run as businesses that prioritised profit over high quality care. The prevalence of religiously affiliated organisations running facilities was seen as effectively limiting their choices, as they did not want to spend their older years living in an institution run by a religious body.

Most people described aged care facilities negatively, saying they were depressing, bleak places that felt clinical and sometimes were overcrowded. Moving to aged care was seen as ‘the beginning of the end’ that precipitated a rapid decline in one’s life expectancy and quality of life.

Specific negative factors mentioned included a lack of meaningful mental stimulation, social isolation and loneliness, poor quality personal care, insufficient staffing levels and staff training, and poor quality nutrition. These factors were interrelated with overstretched staff rushing residents through meals and personal care.

While some interviewees mentioned pleasant high end facilities, others mentioned budget facilities that provided a small per resident food budget, or residents being heavily sedated to reduce staff workload. The effect of having to provide a bond to ensure a place in a facility and the ongoing cost was of great concern to most as was the inadequate regulatory system.

Younger people with physical or mental disabilities living in aged care facilities were particularly critical of the care they received, mentioning issues of cleanliness, personal hygiene, stimulation and respect for residents and appropriate social engagement.

This qualitative research included 274 people from the general community and targeted diversity groups. It was conducted primarily to understand the perspectives of these diversity groups and to complement a national survey for the Royal Commission that has been charged with considering the design of Australia’s future aged care system.