Ageing of Australia
[3][4] This period refers to the post-war era in which total fertility rates (TFR) were approximately 3.0, resulting in 4.19 million births recorded.
[6] The median age of the Australian population 20 years ago was 34, today this has increased to 37; demonstrating a 4-year rise.
[8][9] Decreasing mortality rates and the subsequently increasing life expectancy of Australians has seen an upward trend since the beginning of the 20th century.
[9] This is due to advances in living environments, including "better water supplies, sewerage systems, food quality and health education".
[10] Health services such as hospitals have also improved in the ability to quarantine infection and the general public's knowledge regarding how to protect themselves from diseases has also grown.
[10] Furthermore, developments in medical tools and skills, for example: the concept of immunisation and antibiotics have become a widespread phenomenon across Australia necessitating a surging life expectancy.
[10] It was projected in 2003 that smoking was liable for claiming approximately 7.8% of what would have been 'healthy' years in an Australian's life due to its onset of debilitating or fatal illnesses.
[10] The increased education and the subsequent implementation of few or many of these 'healthy' lifestyle essentials have precipitated the increased expected age of life in Australia as disease and mortality rates decrease[10] There have been three phases of the declining fertility rate trend in Australia between the 1960s and the beginning of the 21st century.
[11] The final of these three phases began at the beginning of the 1990s in which the fertility rate in Australia continued to decline, reaching 1.73 children per woman in 2001.
[14] While there is a reduction in revenue due to the declining working population, there is also a larger demand for elderly support such as nursing homes and care takers.
[14] Due to this increase in spending and decrease in cash flow revenue the elderly population is predicted to deduct 0.4 percentage points from the annual real growth in revenue and add 0.3 percentage points to the annual real growth in spending.
[15] As the number of citizens with such diseases increase, it is becoming a rising challenge for the Australian health care system to cater and manage this appropriately.
[15] With this rise in chronic diseases as a result of the growing elderly population, health care services are in high demand.
[17] This is particularly evident in industrialised countries and continents such as Japan and Hong Kong and a large portion of Europe including Switzerland, Greece and Italy.
[17] Additionally, these countries all have alike future growth projections regarding their elderly population with, by 2020, the proportion of elderly people in Australia projected to grow by 1.2%, the United States of America estimated to increase by 2% and the United Kingdom expected to rise by approximately 0.9%.
