THE Intergenerational Report, released in the 2002-03 Federal Budget, is another sleight of hand. It claims to be about ageing and a blow out in health costs. But a closer look reveals that it identifies only a blow out in pharmaceutical costs. Moreover, the report itself reiterates the views that moderate and respected commentators have...

In The Recruitment of Older Workers: A Survey of a High Growth Industry Michael Bittman, Mardi Flick and James Rice from the Social Policy Research Centre present the results of a survey on employer attitudes and practices towards the recruitment of older workers in the business services sector. To better grasp the likely policy implications...

The 'ageing crisis' is founded on three main assumptions: that older people are a social and economic burden; that population ageing will result in a serious dependency ratio imbalance; and, that there is a close correspondence between the size of the aged population and increased public expenditure. This paper argues that the transition to an...

The profile of the Australian population is ageing. That is to say, the proportion of the population aged 65 years and over is rising and is projected to rise further over the next fifty years. Demographers say the group aged 65+ is likely to increase from around 12 per cent today to around 25 per...

This paper focuses on projecting acute care hospital costs for public and private patients, and government expenditure on benefits paid for Medical Benefits Schedule (MBS) items and Pharmaceutical Benefits Schedule (PBS) items in the context of an ageing population.