Ageing Well Report
Welcome to the Ageing Well Report 2023
This report shares information and insights from a national survey conducted in December 2022 with 2000+ Australians aged 25 – 75+ years. The findings provide a snapshot of current perceptions about ageing and top priorities that are influencing our ability to live and age well today across economic, health, social and environmental factors.
The report also draws from the work of the Bolton Clarke Research Institute which, for over 20 years, has been at the forefront of aged care research and innovation.
We hope this first Ageing Well Report will promote further conversation around what it means to age well and how we can work together to support a positive ageing experience for all Australians.
Finding a framework for ageing well
Australia’s population is ageing. More than 4.1 million Australians, or almost 16 % of us, are currently over the age of 65.
By 2057, that will rise to 8.8 million, or 22% of the population, and by 2097 it will reach 12.8 million people, or one in four Australians. An estimated 14% of boys and 19% of girls born today are expected to live beyond 100 years of age.
We’re not alone – 2023 is the third year in the World Health Organisation’s Decade of Healthy Ageing, with four identified focus areas including changing how we think, feel and act towards ageing; developing communities to foster the abilities of older people; delivering responsive integrated care and primary health services; and providing older people who need it with access to long-term care.
At the same time, governments around the world are seeking to understand the key ingredients to healthy ageing, with optimising people’s functional ability a priority by 2030. This means people’s ability to meet basic needs; to learn, grow and make decisions; to be mobile; to build and maintain relationships and to contribute to society.
Understanding the elements of ageing well is important to inform government and industry decisions around how to deliver and fund responsive services. In Australia, this has been a focus of extensive research and policy debate, most recently through the Federal Government’s Aged Care Taskforce.
As far back as 2001, the Australian Government’s National Strategy for an Ageing Australia identified health throughout life – healthy ageing – as a key focus. Its primary goals related to sustainable and secure retirement incomes, positive attitudes – a society that recognises the diversity and contributions of older Australians - and affordable, sustainable and accessible care. Today financial security, relationships, positive community attitudes to ageing and access to high quality care remain central to national and international efforts to develop workable healthy ageing frameworks for communities and individuals. In 2022 the McKinsey Health Institute proposed a framework that groups these themes into mental, physical, spiritual and social factors that contribute to an individual’s ability to age well.
Drawing on these frameworks, we surveyed Australians on key topics relating to their attitudes to ageing, their priorities as they age, ideas on care and sources of financial security.
Recent white papers
Information for consumers on topics about health, wellbeing and active ageing.
