Six million more years of care needed for the over 85 by 2055 – Statistician’s predictions point to the drastic need of inter-generational strategy

The changes coming to Australia in the years ahead are sizable and unpreventable. The recent Ageing Australia conference saw Mark McCrindle, a futurist and statistician, present not only to inform but centralise the need to grapple with the impacts on a nation. An ageing population is a phrase regularly used in government messaging and provider submissions but to follow the data to its end point, to realise the impact on aged care needs, workforce, tax burdens and societal cohesion, must be the business of all sector leadership, government and to an extent, all generations of Australia. This is going to impact all.

2050 – where the numbers are heading

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, in 2025, Australia has a national population of 27.7 million. The average age is 38.3, and the life expectancy at birth is 83.1.

Those over 65 are sitting at 4.7 million, a percentage of 17% of the nation, those over 85 are sitting at 581,494 or 2.1% and the cohort over 100 are at 6,590.

Counterposed with where statisticians predict Australia will be in 2050, and the numbers drastically alter.

The population would have swelled to 37.9 million, the median age increased to 41.8 and life expectancy has increased to 85.3.

It is worthwhile for providers to take note of the following data, in submissions to government, in future planning, in workforce management, a myriad of factors will be signficantly impacted by the figures to come.

The population over 65 will have nearly doubled to 8.4 million, up to 22.2% of the nation. Those over 85 will have more than tripled to 1,846,914 or 4.9% of the country. And those over 100 will have septupled to 47,277.

Social over siloed

McCrindle’s work is to leverage the data at hand, follow it to find trends and most importantly, highlight how multi-faceted and multi-demographical mixing and cohesion can be a solution to the needs of the future.

While the data shows that seniors, or those over 65 have a high likelihood of helping out their children with free or subsidised childcare, or financial contributions to the lives of their grandchildren, there is also the opportunity for intergenerational help opportunities. 

McCrindle notes that while societal expectations of help can be linear, from the boomer generation, to X, to Y, all the way to the newest of Alpha, likely with financial contributions, there is the opportunity to shift out of this approach. Particularly as Australia’s population ages, there is macro-societal opportunity to adjust the expectations and opportunities of support, lifestyle and demographic mix from a government, provider and wide societal standpoint.

Reforming systemic aged care models

While a difficult area to codify into scientific models, there is compelling research from academics to highlight the benefit of intergenerational living. A large cohort of academic and medical researchers out of Britain found that intergenerational interventions showed a positive trend towards elevating and improving self-esteem and depression.

In the way that aged care is structured, in the physical plans of facilities, in the programs that are established, it is worthwhile for provider leadership to centralise the need for cross-generation staff, volunteers and contractors. If bringing in teenagers to socialise, work and learn from and with the over 85, if this measure is no longer a social experiment for documentaries but a core component of aged care provision offering, societal and individual benefits may surprise both futurist statisticians and veteran aged care executives. 

Attracting a new workforce

The need to normalise, attract and retain a cross-generational workforce is also paramount when looking at the upcoming shift in ages of current aged care personnel.

The Department of Health, Disability and Ageing shows that aged care has an older workforce. In the 2024 report, the “average age was 47 years”. McCrindle notes that the supply of aged care workers has never been shorter. His research highlights that while retail has an average worker of 33.4, residential aged care and community aged care are 48 and 50 respectively.

He predicts that of the 240,445 currently working in the aged care sector, half of this workforce will be ready to retire in roughly 15 years.

Increasing care hours

Providers must be planning and pivoting to draw in younger generations to the aged care sector. The compounding need to break out of current hiring age siloes is also underpinned by the increasing demand on the sector.

McCrindle estimates that within the next 30 years, Australia will see an additional 1,200,000 more people over 85, and with medical research predicting that the average senior Australian will be living a further 5 years from current trends, the numbers are stark. McCrindle predicts that by 2055 the aged care sector will need to absorb a further 6,000,000 years of care.

Focus on recruitment

Both from a public and private standpoint, significant policy and strategy shifts are warranted in light of the need to recruit in the coming decades.

McCrindle predicts that in order to maintain the current ratio of age care personnel to those over 85, which many providers and front-line staff hedge is already significantly strained, a concerted recruitment effort, and creative at that, will be required.

He estimates that the nation will need 77,976 new personnel in the upcoming decades, which boils down to hiring 650 new staff-members a month to replace exiting and retiring staff.

Policy change now for future readiness

These figures are unlikely to disappear into the ether, rather the trends predicted are set to become more deeply felt for front-line staff strained to burn-out, quality care threatened and tax implications for the current workforce increasing without significant and innovative policy and sector adjustments.

The myriad of upcoming changes warrant a multi-faceted, multi-generation dynamic mix of solutions. One generation should not and cannot be relied upon to hold up all others, both from the perspective of young and old alike. It is in the mix of nuanced pricing models for aged care, incentivising cross-generational recruitment in aged care, and updating tax models to build a sustainable nation of equity that leaders must look to.