Category: Uncategorized
Climate change and ageing population create ‘a perfect storm’
The combination of climate change and an ageing population is interacting to create “a perfect storm”, according to a research paper written for the Actuaries Institute.
Heatwaves are killing more Australians than any other natural disaster and are expected to become more frequent and last for longer with over-65s particularly at risk.
The paper, The Impact of Climate Change on Mortality and Retirement Incomes in Australia, was written by Ramona Meyricke, a senior actuary and associate investigator, and Rafal Chomik, a senior fellow at the Centre for Excellence in Population Ageing Research at the University of NSW.
These researchers say that deaths from heatwaves could rise by 12 per cent among over 65-year-olds, with heatwaves expected to triple in some regions.
“More frequent, longer and hotter days will drive a significant increase in mortality, with Australia’s ageing population amplifying the number of people who will die as a result of climate change,” the paper says.
It also canvases the financial implications of climate change for investors, warning of long-term negative returns.
“Understanding the potentially significant implications of climate change is crucial to Australians’ well being,” said Actuaries Institute president Nicolette Rubinsztein. “Many Australians understand the physical risks posed by climate change, but few appreciate the impacts it could have on their mortality risks and their retirement savings.”
The paper examines how climate change will affect Australians in broad ways, including the impact on economic growth, health and mortality, government spending and investment returns. It explores the consequences for individuals and businesses, including health, general and life insurers, pension providers, investors and emergency services and governments.
It states that climate change and ageing populations are interacting to create “a perfect storm”.
“Without proper risk management, these megatrends have the potential to overwhelm individuals, private companies and government balance sheets over the course of this century,” the authors state.
“In terms of public policy, the wide-ranging consequences of climate change on mortality, public health and the economy mean that system-wide policy responses are necessary to mitigate the risks posed.”
Heatwaves have killed more Australians than bushfires, cyclones, earthquakes, floods and severe storms combined, and are the main threat to Australians’ mortality from climate change, the authors say, warning that population ageing is a major contributor to the numbers.
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) projects that by 2050, the population of over-65s and over-85s will nearly double and triple respectively.
“Population ageing will amplify the burden of heat related mortality and health risks in a warming climate – an interaction that policymakers and insurers have not yet fully taken into account,” the report states.
It says that the potential impact of climate change could also extend to lower superannuation contributions and investment returns due to negative long-term returns for investors whose portfolios are not diversified. This, in turn, could lead to lower superannuation balances.
“Illustrative scenario modelling suggests that an individual earning around $75,000 per annum could retire with 11 per cent to 18 per cent less, or a superannuation balance of $40,000 to $70,000 less, because of lower contributions and/or lower investment returns. The impact would be greater for those who experience both reduced contributions and investment returns,” according to the study.
The predictions also have major implications for pension providers, including the Federal Government. The authors say there may be a greater reliance on the Age Pension if climate change seriously diminishes superannuation balances, and a higher cost of provisioning for future Age Pension liabilities if investment returns are lower.
Have you considered the implications of climate change on your income?
How to get more purpose into your life…
New ways for carers to work and care for ageing family members
Carers’ advocates are urging a rethink of the way we support middle-aged Australians caring for ageing parents.
Sydney-based organisation Your Side, which supports older people and their carers, has called for a new type of leave – similar to paid parental leave – to ease the burden on carers and help them stay in the workforce.
While the details are yet to be fleshed out, the idea has merit and could alleviate some of the problems with our current system, which relies on informal carers, many of whom are stressed and struggling financially.
Who are the carers?
Australia has 2.65 million informal carers who provide unpaid help or supervision to people with a chronic condition, disability, or those aged 65 or older. About 57% of informal carers are women and more than two-thirds are 45 or older. In 2015, almost half a million informal carers in Australia were of working age.
While caring can be fulfilling, it can significantly impact workforce engagement and career trajectories. The most common impacts are reduced working hours and leaving employment altogether. This can reduce the carer’s income, assets and superannuation, placing them at risk of financial hardship and poverty.
Impacts are felt most severely by people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, young people and women, especially if they’ve already taken time time out of the workforce to raise children, as recently demonstrated by Annabel Crabb.
Lost income and taxes
When otherwise productive Australians drop out of the workforce, this costs the government through lost taxes and increases in welfare payments.
A recent study by GenIMPACT at Macquarie University estimated that nationally, the income lost to informal carers leaving the workforce was A$3.58 billion in 2015. This is projected to grow by 49%, to A$5.33 billion, in 2030.
The difference in income between those working full-time and those out of the workforce due to informal caring was estimated at A$936 per week in 2015 (A$48,000 a year), rising to A$1,137 (or A$59,000 a year) in 2030.
And carers who leave their jobs are unlikely to return after their care-giving period ends.
Carers’ leave would enable longer workforce participation, increasing both income and taxes paid, one of the federal treasurer’s goals.
What are the psychological impacts on carers?
Many informal carers, particularly those out of the workforce, experience isolation, increased mental stress and high levels of psychological distress.
A study from Carers Queensland found 30% of carers felt socially isolated and 39% have chronic anxiety.
Government-subsidised aged care services are available to older Australians, but these services don’t necessarily enable carers to work. In many cases they’re not available when and where a carer needs them.
Carers’ leave could improve not only carers’ financial stability, but also their mental health, reducing isolation.
Isn’t carers’ leave already available?
Employed carers are already entitled to some carers’ leave. This allows them to take time off work to care for a family or household member. But this often comes out of an employee’s sick leave, which is taken a day at a time.
While informal carers have the right to request flexible working arrangements, employers can still say no on reasonable business grounds.
Some large organisations, including universities, already have carers’ leave, in addition to sick leave. This allows staff to take time off (days or weeks) to care for family members and then return to work, without needing to leave the workforce. This is the model an expanded carers’ leave scheme should emulate.
What are the solutions?
Multiple strategies are needed to solve problems of workforce participation for informal carers. These include:
1) increasing carers’ awareness of their existing entitlements to carers’ leave and flexible work
2) expanding these provisions to accommodate longer periods of leave, either with government or employer support, using the parental leave model. The details of such a scheme, including eligibility and the amount of leave, would need to be developed
3) improving funding and access to aged care services, including home care packages and
4) encouraging innovation in the workplace through flexible working arrangements and a culture supportive to carers. This can boost productivity of care-giving employees and reduce staff turnover.
Introducing longer periods of carers’ leave, similar to parental leave, could better support people with ongoing caring responsibilities to stay in the workforce in the longer term.
This could allow informal carers to support the older person to transition into residential aged care, to recover from a hospital admission due to an age-related illness or fall, or to set up longer-term caring arrangements within the family.
Caring for an ageing parent could therefore result in a relatively short break from a long and productive career, rather than being a trigger for leaving the workforce.
The Conversation: https://theconversation.com/more-carers-leave-may-help-australians-look-after-elderly-parents-and-stay-in-work-127496
Do baby boomers own too much?
As a baby boomer, it’s hard not to be defensive when you read this article. If you own a house in a big city, you are likely to be comfortable but there are many boomers who are surviving on the poverty line – either trying to get a job or scraping by on the pension. And Gen X are not showing much empathy for them.
The comments that appeared in the SMH following this article frankly demonstrated the chasm between generations.
This article was written by Tony Walker who writes on politics, North America and the Middle East. He was formerly the Australian Financial Review’s international editor.
“OK Boomer!” Let me rise on behalf of my own baby boomer generation, not in disapproval of our X, Y and Z children but in their support.
The “OK Boomer!” meme, popularised in the United States on social media and amplified across the Tasman by a young New Zealand MP to ridicule an entitled cohort, has sliced through generations to expose a widening disconnect between age brackets.
In Australia, the “OK Boomer” meme might just as easily be applied to growing tax-advantaged wealth disparities. My own Gen Y daughter has been going on about this for years, to which my response has been to accuse her, in jest, of “generational envy”.
After all, didn’t we Baby Boomers have our own generation gap in the 1960s, more pronounced than the one now, as we fought our battles with our “silent generation” parents? Didn’t we shift the country on its axis – and for the better – in the Vietnam era? And, by the way, didn’t Baby Boomers such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs create the software and hardware for the communications revolution to which Millennials are addicted?
All of this is true, but as the most privileged generation – with the caveat that many, many Baby Boomers born between 1946-1964 have fallen through the cracks – we have to admit that Millennials and their successor generation (known as Gen Z) have a point.
A lucky generation in a lucky country in danger of scorching its dumb luck has had bestowed on itself the sort of once-in-a-hundred-year windfall that is unlikely to be repeated in all our lifetimes, Millennials included.
The housing boom is the Baby Boomer Klondike. I’m talking about a period of supercharged wealth accumulation that has produced the sort of intergenerational-riches bulge that has distorted the benefits of a record-setting economic expansion to the advantage of one generation and the disadvantage of others. You would be hard put to argue that, if not intergenerational theft, this was not an intergenerational provocation driven by the most favourable giveaway tax regime for an entitled generation in the Western world.
In other words: Generation X, born between 1965-1980; Y, 1981-1996; the so-called Millennials; and Z, 1997 onwards, have a rather large point in their criticisms of a protected Baby Boomer species.
This Boomer cohort is spearheaded by a ubiquitous self-funded retiree block in cahoots with pestilential money managers whose “benchmarks” have much less to do with the greater good than they do with the commissions they receive. This noisy cabal helped demolish Labor’s dysfunctional and overloaded election ambitions in which a so-called “retiree tax” became an easy target.
Among various consequences of the Labor debacle is that overdue reforms of the tax system – such as reining in negative gearing, capping tax-free franking credit returns, and overhauling capital gains tax and family trust concessions – will be off the table for the time being.
This will continue until the government is left with no choice. Budgetary pressures will dictate a re-balancing of an unfair tax system in which younger taxpayers continue to underwrite a wealth transfer to an older generation. The question is not if but when this transfer becomes unsustainable and politically untenable. In the meantime, “OK Boomer” resentment – by whatever description – will continue to grow.
The Grattan Institute’s Danielle Wood, co-author of a timely survey “Generation Gap: ensuring a fair go for younger Australians“, says that for the first time in living memory we are setting up a generation to be worse off than the one before.
Numbers tell their own story. Australian Bureau of Statistics surveys of Household Income and Wealth 1994-2016 show that head of household wealth in the 55-74 bracket had more than doubled to around $1.3 million compared with Gen Ys and Zs, whose worth had flat-lined.
Homeownership among under-35-year-olds has plummeted. This is especially so among the young and poor. In 1981, 60 per cent of people in the lowest wealth quintile aged 25-34 owned a house; now, the figure is just 20 per cent. All this is taking place against the background of low wages growth, increasing casualisation of the workforce, job insecurity, the precariousness of the gig economy, and the near-certainty of lower incomes for Millennials than their predecessors.
On top of that is the frog-boil, as Wood puts it: an ageing demographic whose demands on a working-age population will escalate from now. This is not sustainable under the present tax system in which net transfers – government benefits minus taxes – have dramatically increased for older households but not for younger ones.
OK, Boomer; it’s time to yield some ground.
Even blokes can find something to read…
The Effects of Loneliness and Isolation on the Elderly
Social isolation and loneliness are precipitated by a number of factors, including living alone, health problems and disability, and sensory impairment such as hearing loss. Major life events such as the death of a spouse have been shown by numerous studies to dramatically increase seniors’ vulnerability to emotional and social isolation.
This is made worse if there is a drop in communication with family or friends at the same time or even a move to an unfamiliar neighborhood. The same is true if family members move for work or other personal reasons, or aging siblings and friends die. An emphasis on senior independence under these circumstances can lead to increased physical isolation and social disengagement, and trigger instability and insecurity.
Research by Australian aged care provider, Whiddon Group, indicates that close to 50 percent of seniors living at home report being lonely, compared with around ten percent in the general population. And a 2014 working paper by the Council on the Ageing (COTA) Victoria says the number of socially isolated people will more than double by 2040, and is likely to increase further as the proportion of seniors in the population increases.
Apart from general feelings of sadness and loneliness, the impact of isolation and the shrinking of social networks can lead to a variety of negative physical and emotional effects in the elderly.
Loneliness, social isolation and mortality risk
According to a 2012 study in the U.S, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), social isolation and loneliness are associated with a higher risk of mortality in adults aged 52 and older. And a study by The University of Chicago showed major health risks were associated with loneliness; revealing that elderly people who are affected by ‘extreme loneliness’ are up to 14 percent more likely to die a premature death. This is backed up by the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), which reported that elderly people who are socially isolated are more likely to die earlier.Decline in physical and mental health
Regardless of the causes of isolation, seniors who feel lonely and isolated are more likely to also report having poor physical and/or mental health, according to a study using data from the U.S National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project.
In the United Kingdom, the Campaign to End Loneliness concludes that the lack of social relationships is as strong a risk factor for mortality as smoking, obesity or the lack of physical activity. Similarly, older adults who are lonely have an increased risk of dying sooner and are more likely to experience a decline in their mobility, compared to those who are not.
Interestingly, but sadly, there is a trend for older people to present to hospital emergency departments, not necessarily due to medical problems but for social interactions, or because they are simply not coping. Australian Government website My Aged Care quotes a study where people classified as ‘lonely’ are 60 percent more likely to access emergency services than those considered ‘non-lonely’ and are twice as likely to enter residential aged care facilities.
Long-term illness
In the PNAS study mentioned above, illnesses and conditions such as chronic lung disease, arthritis, impaired mobility, high blood pressure and depression are associated with social isolation.
Cognitive decline and risk of dementia
According to the U.S Senior Living Blog, Dr. John Cacioppo, a neuroscientist, and psychologist at the University of Chicago, has been studying social isolation for 30 years. One of his frightening findings is that feelings of loneliness are linked to poor cognitive performance, quicker cognitive decline and the increased risk of dementia.
Vulnerability to elder abuse
A study by the U.S National Center on Elder Abuse shows a connection between social isolation and higher rates of elder abuse. Researchers aren’t certain whether this is because isolated adults are more likely to fall victim to abuse, or it’s a result of abusers attempting to isolate the elders from others to minimize the risk of discovery. Irrespective of the cause, this vulnerability is a cause for concern.
Depression and pessimism
Numerous studies have shown that loneliness is a major risk factor for depression, with increased symptoms in both middle-aged and older adults. Socially isolated seniors are more likely to predict their quality of life will get worse, and are more concerned about needing help from community programs as they get older.
Long term care
According to a report from the Canadian Children’s, Women’s and Seniors Health Branch, loneliness and social isolation are major predictors of seniors needing home care, as well as entering nursing homes.
Isolation: A risk factor for unhealthy lifestyle habits
A study using data from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA) found that people who are socially isolated or lonely are also more likely to report risky health behaviors such as poor diet, lack of physical activity, and smoking.
MICHAELÉ HARRINGTON SENIORS’ HEALTH
Report finds aged care workers have no time to meet the social needs of older people
A joint UNSW Sydney, Macquarie University and RMIT study has found that aged care workers are so rushed and pressured to provide basic physical care for older people, they have no time to meet their clients’ basic social and emotional needs.
The report was prepared for the Health Services Union and United Voice, unions which represent aged care workers.
Care workers overwhelmingly say they have insufficient time to either talk to their clients or get to know their uniqueness, or to support their decision making and independence.
Evidence has long shown that older people value the relationships they have in aged care services, aspire to feel at home and valued, and define quality services as those where staff have time and flexibility to get to know them and attend to their needs. These aspirations are also a feature of Australia’s quality standards.
“Yet it has become structurally difficult to provide care in this way,” lead author Professor Gabrielle Meagher from Macquarie University’s Department of Sociology says. “The Australian aged care system has to meet increasing levels of demand, and to respond to the increasing complexity of need among older people related to daily living, behavioural issues or complex health care. But our research shows this has not been matched with appropriate funding, staffing levels or a mix of staff skills.”
The Meeting the social and emotional support needs of older people using aged care services report comes a week before the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety is due to hand down its interim report on Thursday, 31 October.
The universities’ report found:
· Numbers of aged care places have outstripped workforce growth, with no increase in the ratio of fulltime equivalent care workers to residential care places since 2003.
· In the same period, residential care workers’ skill profiles have significantly deteriorated.
· Personal care workers perform an increased proportion of direct care work in residential settings, up from 57% (2003) to 72% (2016). Correspondingly, the share of nurses and allied health professionals has declined.
· Across residential and home care services, 90% of care workers agreed they had no time to respond to unexpected needs, or to spend time with an older person they found to be in low spirits.
· More than three-quarters (78%) said they had insufficient time to support older people to do things for themselves, such as use a walker instead of a wheelchair.
· Only 37% felt their managers understood the importance of workers’ relationships with older people, with many reporting they were seen to be “slacking off” if they attended to a client’s social and emotional needs.
“Care workers routinely observe that older people’s emotional needs are left unmet in the system designed to support them,” Wendy Taylor from RMIT’s School of Management says. “In the aged care system today, overlooking older people’s basic social and emotional needs has become part of accepted business practices.”
Dr Natasha Cortis, from UNSW’s Social Policy Research Centre, says the research shows that organisational supports for quality care are too thin: “We found that less than a quarter (22%) of aged care workers were receiving one-on-one support from a supervisor, and less than half (45%) were able to participate in team meetings to discuss the way they provide care. ”
“Insufficient time and support for relationship building and care makes it difficult to realise principles of dignity, respect and person-centredness in aged care,” Professor Meagher says. “This partly explains the very high rates of social isolation and mental distress experienced by older people.”
“Employment conditions and pay rates in aged care also fail to recognise the specific skills and demands of the work, leaving care workers and older people vulnerable,” says Professor Sara Charlesworth of RMIT’s School of Management.
The report recommends:
· The psychosocial needs of older people be at the forefront of the design of aged care services.
· Aged care funding be increased to sufficient levels to enable services to be provided to all older people who need support, and this funding be care-centred.
· The aged care system’s human resources be regulated to ensure that rostering and daily work arrangements allow workers enough time to care and to offer continuity of care relationships.
· Workers have relevant practice and relational skills to deliver high-quality care, and be supported by managers so that they develop meaningful relationships with older people.
Rosie Batty, Women’s Legal Services Australia team up for family law reforms
Former Australian of the Year Rosie Batty has partnered with women’s legal services across Australia to urge the federal government to enact reforms to keep women and children safe in the family law system.
Ms Batty, who was driven to campaign to end family violence after her 11-year-old son was murdered by her former partner, yesterday endorsed the new Safety First in Family Law plan, launched by Women’s Legal Services Australia.
Safety First comprises a five-point plan, advocating that the federal government: strengthen family violence response in the family law system, provide effective legal help for the most disadvantaged, ensure family law professionals have real understanding of family violence, increase access to safe dispute resolution models and overcome the gaps between the family law, family violence and child protection systems.
The plan “can be implemented right now, and is based on research, evidence and key recommendations from previous family law inquiries”, the partnership noted in a statement.
Ms Batty said it was critical for the government to act now to reform the family law system.
“Nearly 70 percent of matters lodged in the family courts involve allegations of family violence, but the system is not set up to deal with this – and neither are the many professionals who work within the system,” she said.
“The family courts don’t have case management processes specifically designed for family violence cases, so safety risks are not being managed. This is putting women and children at grave risk.”
WLSA spokesperson Helen Matthews added that the government needed to show its commitment to ending violence against women, and that one step that could be taken in achieving this would be to implement the reform plan developed by specialist women’s legal services around Australia.
“Women’s legal services across Australia work on the frontline to represent family violence victim survivors – we know just how urgent these reforms are, and how the current family law system is failing women and children,” she said.
“These reforms can and should be implemented now. If the government is serious about making the family law system safe for women and children, it must act and implement our recommendations”.
By Jerome Doraisamy|23 October 2019
Useful statistics – Violence against women is a widespread problem in Australia.
PREVALENCE OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Source: 2016 Personal Safety Survey (ABS, 2017)
ANROWS has analysed the statistics related to women and personal violence. It tells us a lot about the relationship between men and women.
Since the age of 15:
• Approximately one in four women (23% or 2.2 million) has experienced at least one incident of violence by an intimate partner (intimate partner = a current or previous partner with whom the respondent lives or has lived, or a current or former boyfriend, girlfriend or date with whom the respondent has not lived with).
• One in six women (17% or 1.6 million) has experienced at least one incident of violence by a partner (partner = a person whom the respondent lives with, or lived with at some point, in a married or de facto relationship).
• Three in ten women (30.5% or 2.85 million) have experienced physical violence (perpetrated by another person, irrespective of the type of relationship).
• Approximately one in five women (18% or 1.7 million) has experienced sexual violence (the occurrence, attempt or threat of sexual assault).
• One in six women (17% or 1.6 million) has experienced an episode of stalking (any unwanted contact or attention on more than one occasion, or multiple types of unwanted contact or behaviour experienced on one occasion, that could have caused fear or distress).
• Approximately one in four women (23% or 2.2 million) has experienced emotional abuse by a partner.
Across their lifetime:
• One in two women (53% or 5 million) has experienced sexual harassment
(experienced or has been subjected to one or more selected behaviours which they found improper or unwanted, which made them feel uncomfortable, and/or were offensive due to their sexual nature)