Abstract
In recent years, Australia’s older population (aged 65 and over) has been growing rapidly, accompanied by a shift in its country of birth composition. Although a great deal of research has been undertaken on past and current aspects of Australia’s migrant groups, little attention has been paid to future demographic trends in older populations. The aim of this paper is to examine recent and possible future demographic trends of Australia’s migrant populations at the older ages. We present population estimates by country and broad global region of birth from 1996 to 2016, and then new birthplace-specific population projections for the 2016 to 2056 period. Our findings show that substantial growth of the 65+ population will occur in the coming decades, and that the overseas-born will shift from a Europe-born dominance to an Asia-born dominance. Cohort flow (the effect of varying sizes of cohorts moving into the 65+ age group over time) will be the main driver of growth for most older birthplace populations. The shifting demography of Australia’s older population signals many policy, planning, service delivery and funding challenges for government and private sector providers. We discuss those related to aged care, health care, language services, the aged care workforce, regulatory frameworks and future research needs in demography and gerontology.
Highlights
Like most high-income countries, Australia’s population is experiencing population ageing—both numerical ageing in which the size of the population in older age groups is growing, and structural ageing in which the share of the total population in those age groups is rising
We produced projections for many individual countries and world regions of birth, but in order to present a clear picture of broad-level trends, we report projections for two groupings of countries based on the ABS classification of birthplaces (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2016)
Our key findings include (i) fast growth of the 65+ population occurred between 1996 and 2016, with the overseas-born share increasing; (ii) continued rapid growth is likely over coming decades; (iii) the birthplace composition of the overseas-born will undergo a major shift from being European-dominated to being Asian-dominated by mid-century and (iv) the key demographic factor affecting the size of birthplace-specific older populations will be cohort flow
Summary
Like most high-income countries, Australia’s population is experiencing population ageing—both numerical ageing in which the size of the population in older age groups is growing, and structural ageing in which the share of the total population in those age groups is rising. The composition of the older population, in terms of country of birth, language, religion, living arrangements, health, wealth, education and other socio-economic characteristics, is evolving. We focus on the recent past and projected future of Australia’s older population by country (or global region) of birth. Country of birth is important because of its association with English language proficiency, which is central to social participation and ability to access government services in Australia (McDonald, Moyle, Wilson et al Genus (2020) 76:20. A sizeable body of literature had found that older migrants from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds encounter multiple barriers in accessing aged-care and health-related services in Australia (Haralambous et al, 2014; Radermacher, Feldman, & Browning, 2009; Rao, Warburton, & Bartlett, 2006; Tipping & Whiteside, 2015).
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