Developments in ageing

Abstract

Significant and monumental changes have taken place in the recent past in the structure of Australia's population, in the needs exhibited and expressed by the population, and in the methods used to attend to those needs. Australia's population is ageing slowly. Those aged 65 and over, who today comprise 9.8 per cent of the population, will by the year 2001, comprise about 11.0 per cent, and by 2021 about 14.0 per cent. A dozen wealthy countries in Europe have elderly populations right now, much larger than those projected for Australia even fifty years down the line.