Ageing, employment and economic sustainability in Transitions and risk: new directions in social policy

Abstract

The economic impact of an ageing population was the focus of Australia’s last two Commonwealth budgets. In 2003 the budget presented the influential Intergenerational Report, which reappeared indirectly in Budget Paper No. 1, 2004. In contrast, this paper argues that the ageing ‘crisis’ is fictional. Real labour productivity, GDP per capita and labour earnings should double in real terms over the next five decades. We can well ‘afford’ an ageing population. The real issues attached to ‘ageing’ concern the future of work, job redesign to accommodate older workers and a shift from neo-liberal thinking towards a sustainable social economics (Source: CSP).