Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Older Australians Are Not Leaners

I agree with the sentiment of Kaye Fallick in her Age article on Monday Busting myths about the baby boomer burdens. Far from being a burden, they make an undervalued contribution to our society worth billions each year according to Dr Kathleen Brasher from the Council on the Ageing Victoria, a value added amount that GDP overlooks.

In bringing down his now infamous 2014 Budget, Treasurer Hockey emphasised the age of leaners had to end, and then went about outlining an ideological assault on welfare recipients, which included Aged Pensioners, by proposing an increase in the pension eligibility age to 70 and a re-indexation of the age pension.

An ageing population is a sign of success, both individually and collectively. Those societies which are the oldest are also the richest, healthiest and have the greatest life expectancy.

Worrying about getting older devalues older people and the significant contributions older people make to our society. Research constantly shows that older people make a great contribution to our society, providing child care and acting as mentors and role models. A significant increase in women’s participation in the workforce in the past few decades has been facilitated by having grandparents to look after children. Older people have also been found to make more financial contributions to their children and grandchildren than the other way around. Far from being leaners they are in fact lifters. Many age pensioners take on part time and occasional work and should be encouraged and rewarded for these valuable contributions to our community.

The whole ageing workforce scare is based around the idea that the ageing of the workforce will lead to labour shortages. As Dr Katherine Betts, from the Swinburne University of Technology, points out in the article, fears that a reduction in the proportion of tax-paying workers will support a growing proportion of age pensioners are unfounded: “even with no further growth in labour force participation rates, the dependency ratio is expected to decline from a current 53.6 per cent to about 44-46 per cent by 2061….Moreover, the health and cognitive abilities of older people are better today than they were among older people in the past."

The May Budget was seriously flawed in not acknowledging the inputs of senior Australians. The Treasurer would be better placed if he were to recognise older Australians’ contribution to the economy in the form of unpaid work, volunteering, child-minding and intergenerational transfers of wealth.

1 comment:

  1. If the accusation of "leaners" was made against any other sector of the community, especially some ethnic group, there would be outcries of "racism" and "xenophobia", but the older public are fair game for vilification as being economic threats! Our economy should not be a tool for favouring some demographic group at the expense of others. The economy exists to serve us, not make value judgements of who is more worthy than others. There was a much higher rate of employment in the past, and working people contributed to the success of our nation. Now, it's bigger, and sluggish, and is struggling to provide for our swelling population- thanks to full throttle immigration rates! With high youth unemployment and higher rate of unemployment within migrant groups, the demographic imbalance is what is distorting our economy, not older people.