Future of Ageing: Older Australians to pay for their own retirement
| Media Centre |
Superannuation-style saving plans may be the ‘pension’ of the future as the number of older Australians is expected to double by 2050.National Seniors Australia chief executive Michael O’Neill said higher taxes alone would not be able to fund aged care and advocated a superannuation-style approach.
“I suspect longer term, there will be a need for greater exploration of people… providing contributions themselves rather than just relying on taxation increases,” Mr O’Neill said.
“Given the shift in population size that is occurring, it will be inevitable that people are expected to, if they have the capacity, to fund more of their own aged care.”
Current figures forecast that the number of Australians aged over 85 will quadruple by 2050. During the same period, the proportion of working-age Australians for everyone aged over 65 was expected to fall from five at present to 2.7.