“I JUST ACCEPT IT!” RESEARCH REMINISCENCES ON AGED INCOME SECURITY

Abstract

ABSTRACTFrom its inception in 1909 the Australian Age Pension became well established as a social ‘right’ of citizenship over the following eight decades. Since 1988 and the Social Security Review, though, retirement incomes policy has become subject to political debate and policy turbulence. Ideally, abstract and applied policy should draw upon the lessons of history. So the perceptions of pensioner beneficiaries about the effects of pension provision on life chances are pertinent to present discussion. Such social policy story‐telling suggests that for working class seniors of the present cohort, memories of the Great Depression ameliorate any sense of present hardship, creating appreciation and acceptance of extant pension provisions. In view of the contemporary exhortations that individuals should now take full financial responsibility for their own retirement income security, the lesson that ordinary working folk cannot save an adequate retirement nest egg seems salient Furthermore, politicians' past behaviour of ‘super swindle’ seems likely to be repeated. The baby boom generation, having funded aged care in its day, can itself only anticipate a bleak future in terms of the retreat of the State from the provision of aged income security.