Things are bad, and they’re about to get worse.
Last month, Treasury published the 2023 intergenerational report, a kind of crystal ball exercise that looks 40 years into the future and highlights some defining issues of our time. Of course, the report only ever suggests a possible future that assumes Australia remains on its current trajectory.
Still, the conversations that flow from the report are important in focusing our collective minds. The report helped elevate the impending disaster of climate change, as Greg Jericho wrote for Guardian Australia: “The only thing the current generation absolutely needs to do for the next generation is stop burning fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Everything else is secondary.”
Fair, given we’ve just experienced the hottest June and July on record and time is running out to reduce emissions and keep temperatures from rising 1.5 degrees.
Without wishing to deflect from the importance of climate change, there are other existential issues also highlighted by the report that require our immediate attention. Care — the value we as a society place on it, as well as its availability and quality — is one. The report could have included a chapter entitled: “OK, millennial, we need to talk about the care crisis”.
Millennials are grappling with the care crisis prompted by staff shortages in the early education and care sector — there are 25,000 vacancies, and parents across the country are struggling to find a place for their children despite the recent increase in subsidies that make it more affordable — and it is more than a little ironic that they are being told they will need to find tens of thousands more aged care workers to look after them in 40 years.
According to the intergenerational report, the number of people over 65 will more than double, while the number of people over 85 will more than triple. As a result, the number of care workers, which has more than doubled over the past 20 years, is estimated to double again over the next 40 years. And the “care economy” will increase from 8% of GDP to about 15%.
But here’s why care is an existential issue for millennials: unless something changes, those care workers won’t be there. We are already in the midst of a caring crisis. Just last year, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) updated figures on the scale of aged care worker shortages — figures it had released less than a year before. The annual shortage of aged care workers doubled in less than a year, from 17,000 to 35,000.
Roughly a decade ago, I was working at the UK’s Human Rights Commission when an earnest policy officer came to me with a paper on the “undervaluing of women’s work”. She knew it was a bit of a beige-sounding but vitally important issue, and was desperate for me to get it some media traction. The paper warned that this was contributing to a “caring time bomb”, a stark warning. Fast-forward 10 years, and that warning took on new meaning during the pandemic: we had reached the end of that bomb’s fuse.
The undervaluing of women’s work is essentially the poor pay and conditions in highly feminised (mostly care) industries, and it accounts for about one-fifth of the gender pay gap in Australia. It is primarily due to the fact that when it comes to care, we expect women to do it for free or little pay out of “love”, and because it aligns with our expectations of women as “natural” carers.
A 2021 report warned that poor pay had pushed Australia to the precipice of an aged care staffing crisis, with a “mass exodus” on the cards in the next five years. At the same time, we had a shortage of around 6500 early-years educators, and one in eight childcare centres had waivers from the sector’s quality regulator to allow them to operate for at least 12 months without meeting legal staffing requirements.
We stand at a crossroads, one marked by some key events in the broader policy landscape where we might — at long last — value care. They include the Albanese government’s commitment to develop a national care and support strategy and a parliamentary inquiry into the recognition of unpaid carers.
The pandemic opened our eyes to the consequences of not placing a higher value on care. Now the intergenerational report is telling us we must confront that crisis or we won’t be able to meet our growing demands for care in the future.
Let’s not ignore this warning from the future or the solutions within our reach. The era of care has arrived.
With such significant shortages, wages in these fields must being growing strongly, to attract workers, right ?
Right ?
….crickets….
That invisible hand of the market is looking pretty damn invisible these days
There was a recent comparison of the wages of the most “in demand” jobs in Australia and the respective pay… Why would young people choose the care sector to work where they will be undervalued and overworked? They can get much more pay for less intense work… Until this changes there will be no increase in recruitment or retention of care staff.
There will be plenty of older neoliberal Australians who believe young people should just do what they’re told and work hard for crap money… Well too bad, that time has passed and people now expect to have the pay and conditions that previous generations fought hard to achieve.
Damn right!
Your describing a neoliberal attitude coming back to bight them. The most successful neoliberals will age gracefully, it’s the rest that assumed that they weren’t being lied to that will pay, they accepted propaganda as fact. They didn’t have a private school background weren’t selfish enough and/or were women or they just didn’t cope.
Modern Western society has outsourced our responsibility to care for the elderly and the young. Are we actually any happier. We move to our little separate boxes to be dutiful citizens and consume. Which in itself has become out of reach for many.
Anyone who has travelled throughout Asia or the Middle East has seen how we used to live in larger extended family groups.
This way of living pools resources. There is no housing crisis, children and the elderly aren’t put in care. And becoming unemployed isn’t a problem with the group providing security at the same time h you are expected to pull your weight.
Our modern Western system sucks us dry in the pursuit of Individualism. Are we any happier. Anecdotally it appears or modern way if living is stressful and makes us less happy. It seems bizarre what I am suggesting but this way of living was still going on when I was young and I’m only 58.
Perhaps it’s time we go back to a more communal approach.
Yep
No perhaps about it. But our system isn’t in pursuit of individualism; that’s just a means to the end of the dominance of the ruling class in spite of what we sadly refer to as democracy.
Yep. Unfortunately, modern capitalism requires a highly mobile workforce which this model just doesn’t support. You should stop blaming the people and put the blame on the wealthy who make their money off the mobile workforce.
It should be part of a ubs, encouraged to look out for locals and drop in for a culpa. Aged care facilities could be renamed community centres. It is very rewarding work and helps people understand and learn about themselves and others.
It may be rewarding work, but not financially. Community centres? – once they were called nursing homes for the simple reason that the residents needed nursing care, but this blindingly obvious fact seems to have eluded policy makers.
Residential Aged Care Facilities function EXACTLY as designed by John Howard & Co. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aged_Care_Act_1997
Among other things, Howard wanted to open up RACF to “competition” by removing the requirement for a registered nurse to be in charge of RACF. Furthermore, there was absolutely no requirement for care workers to have any training before being let loose on the frail elderly. Maybe things would be better if Howard’s entire plan was put in place, with any Tom, Dick or Bookkeeper in charge of running aged care facility. And that bloke with the sandwich board outside Maccas in Bourke Street could do the odd shift at any old RACF.
Community centres,.. the emphasis being that our elders are part of our community.
In the Nordic countries (of course!) old folks homes are often part on the same grounds as preschools – the benefits for both extremes of Life’s journey are immense, not to mention the parents themselves.
Think the Netherlands encourage students to live in aged care doing part time roles, in return for pay & full board.
The problem is not lonely oldies, it’s people needing constant supervision and skillful help every day with the basic activities of living.
I would disagree on that , well it’s both, the problem is lonely old people and the sheer waste of knowledge, thousands of years of life skills in each aged care residence. Some people do need constant supervision and skilful help everyday, duty of care means they take up most of the time. Finding people who have the patience and consideration to work in that area is more likely if more people are used to being in the general environment.
An interesting example is that older folk may have lived with and coped with a condition for most of their lives . Younger people suffering from something similar can gravitate or be identified by them , it’s a useful dynamic for both parties.
The Netherlands, it’s a value added extra inc. part time tasks, that neither precludes nor replaces existing health & aged care personnel, it’s simply to make for a better overall experience.
Yes they do.
Sooner or later, someone is going to have to write an article about the merits of state-sponsored suicide. Yeah, I’m serious. I’ve seen five people, parents, friends of parents, etc, all go into nursing homes and turn into zombies. The body functions, sort of, but the brain is missing. And a lot of time, money, and effort is spent caring for the vessel long after the crew have left.
I don’t want that. I suspect that many, many others don’t want it either. If you’re old, if there’s no other road except living with increasing senility, discomfort, confusion, and isolation within four unchanging walls, why not have the state offer a painless way out? (Okay, we all know why; Jesus, just imagine the Opposition and New Scrote on the subject! The wailing, ranting, and lamentation would be heard all the way to Norway).
But it’s the principle. We have a problem, and we have a solution. What we don’t have is a discussion.
Difficult to think of anything that could be said about assisted dying, that hasn’t already been said.
Assisted dying is a series of increasingly difficult hurdles that you have to jump when you have a terminal illness. And it has to be in exceptional circumstances, such as being near death, and in pain or discomfort which cannot be alleviated. This is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about bowing out before such issues manifest themselves to the degree currently necessary. And not just physical illness, either. There’s a point where life is not going to improve, or become richer, or gain meaning, and that is the point where an option of suicide becomes realistic. You may be capable of rational decision making, you may be capable of walking to the toilet, you may be capable of filling out a form. But what’s the point? If the joy, the meaning, and the curiosity of life have gone, and you know it’s a downhill slide into the abyss, the option of bowing out while there’s still a working brain should be allowed.
How does one distinguish between bowing out and suicide?
Nursing homes can be quite pleasant, and many inmates are contented. The killer, pardon the pun, is dementia. Even with the best care and family support, people with dementia often spend years in fear and confusion.
As do many people who subscribe to newscorpse offerings, there are,a couple of dementias that are truly awful but those can often be alleviated with appropriate meds, and the end point usually comes up fairly quickly for that kind of suffering.
There are other dementias that once the person has come to terms with their lot can be not too bad.
Coming to terms may happen many times a day for some which isn’t fun, there are so many personal variations of types .
I worked in aged care for 20 years and I can tell you straight that not ONE resident wanted to be in a nursing home. They were there because there was no where else to go. As to being “pleasant”. If the boss was taking the relatives of prospective residents around the facility, they always arranged the inspection just before lunchtime, when all the residents have been toiletted and dressed and ready for lunch, and the facility smells of food cooking, rather than shit and piss and residents calling, pleading for help..
With regards to dementia, it is best that sufferers stay in their homes, in familiar surroundings with familiar people around them. The loss of short term memory means that nursing home residents with dementia wake up every day in a place they don’t know, being tended by no one they recognise. This creates massive anxiety that usually requires what is euphemistically called “chemical restraint”. They’re better off at home.
Everyone has a need to communicate, solving the puzzle as to how and identifying when they can is very rewarding , I can’t think of a zombie type, the good carers and nurses identify how.
It can be very tough on family and friends, there is quality support strategies, its not for everyone. The automatic urge to live, life force overpowers everything sometimes. I don’t want to end up a trapped entity watching on while I can’t function yet to be acknowledged respectfully when stuck in there may make my day . You have to be brave and possibly a bit reckless to end your time. Miserable people can get meds that alleviate even that sort of pain often., those that reach that point and find no relief don’t tend to last that long .
Basic kindness is very powerful and insightful .
1000 upticks. Unlike most terminal illness, dementia is the one that can inflict equal or more suffering on family and friends. Dementia seems to challenge and lay bare the foundations of love and relationships. It is in the best interest of society that professional carers of the aged are adequately supported to provide (at least) good enough care.
Yes this discussion needs to come out into the open. VAD is useless for most people as it does not assist those with dementia till closer to the end which is some time spent in torturous circumstances.
There is no other choice for those with problems creeping up. Put a plan in place. Be proactive and exit by one’s own means so that one does not spend years ‘waiting’. One does not want to unnecessarily take up the beds all the while filling the coffers of the aggressive cash cow industry.
So what sensible option does one have .. exit as gracefully as one can, all alone so as not to implicate our loved ones. Very sad and tragic but more humane than getting caught up in the quagmire of the aggressive cash cow industry and its apologists!
I’m not sure it would ever be possible to draw a red line between state-sponsored suicide and guilting the expensive elderly to hurry up and shuffle off to support further neoliberal disinvestment in care.
The only way I could see this working in a society which resembles ours is an informal movement promoting the most humane means of doing it illegally, with the movement becoming strong enough that formal sanctions which discourage it (life insurance clauses, etc?) are forced to be relaxed.
I’d love to know what the modbot found wrong with this: i.ibb.co/3hgn3ps/Screenshot-20230912-111306-Brave.jpg
Trying to dodge invisible obstacles is maddening.