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Centre for Policy on Ageing | |
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Private lives and public programs
— an Australian longitudinal study of the elderly | | Author(s) | John McCallum, Leon A Simons, Judith Simons |
| Journal title | Journal of Aging & Social Policy, vol 19, no 4, 2007 |
| Pages | pp 87-104 |
| Source | http://www.tandfonline.com |
| Keywords | Health services ; Services ; Family care ; Social welfare ; Longitudinal surveys ; Australia. |
| Annotation | Major late life events, reported in the Dubbo, New South Wales longitudinal study of older Australians, are used to examine the interaction of private lives with public programmes. First, the data indicate strong supportive effects of publicly-funded income, health, and aged care programmes in reducing family burdens from major life changes. In particular, financial crises were rarely mentioned, directly or indirectly, as major threats. Next, the central role of informal social support in these events is demonstrated, as in previous studies, family support was responsive to risky events and to ageing itself. In new findings, one-third of surviving elderly respondents coped with the burdens of family crises as a substantial proportion of the 'major' life changes that occurred over 13 years of the study. Within the security and support provided by the Australian welfare system, and with strong social networks, families with older persons in the Dubbo study manage multiple, major life changes. With rapid population ageing, the development of more and more easily accessible services for a growing population of older people is a priority. The critical challenge will be to harmoniously grow public financing, private funding and informal caregiving to deal with the growing burden arising from an ageing society. (KJ/RH). |
| Accession Number | CPA-080212214 A |
| Classmark | L: I: P6:SJ: TY: 3J: 7YA |
Data © Centre for Policy on Ageing |
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| ...from the Ageinfo database published by Centre for Policy on Ageing. |
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