There is one aspect of ageing that no-one has yet considered.

Current ABS estimates are that the percentage of the population aged over 65 in the year 2050 will be 32%.

Assuming that the current voting age remains unchanged, this means that in 2050 the percentage of the electorate over 65 will be 40%.

In addition, the closing of almost all superannuation schemes that pay an indexed pension in favour on those that just give the recipient a large capital sum, will mean that in 2050 around 15% of the electorate will be petty bourgeois - that is to say, people living off their capital.

You have to go back to the 1840's in England to find a period where the percentage was as high as this, and then it was because the working class did not have the vote.

It will mean an enormous shift to the right in government policy. After all, the bourgeois are not interested in unemployment (being all unemployed anyway), and would most probably, in George Bernard Shaw's words, be most interested in economic policies which would result in an real annual after-tax return of 5% on a sound investment, together with sharply reduced spending on welfare. Current Keynesian policies, such as over taxation of interest earnings and death duties, would be anathema.

We could even see a policy of limiting the right to vote to persons with a minimum level of capital.

Should be an interesting century.

plerdsus
As the article indicates, the ABS currently preducts that those 65+ will reach about 24% of the population, not 32%. In commbination with the declining proportion of under-18s, this will take them to about 30% of the voting age population.

What a croc of alarmist BS. If we had a public owned banking system that creates 6% of our GDP debt free, this would be $ 90 billion pa with no interest to build infrastructure and care for the aged and infirmed.

We are in enormous debt because we sold off 4 state Govt banks and the Commonwealth that created from nothing,some of the money to = your toil + inflation.

Eventually we almost all end up in prison then? Even the good people...Ho Ho Ho, I laugh!

Having worked as an RN in the aged care system for several years, I can tell you it isn't all bad!
While none of us ever wants to end up in a residential care facility, the odds are that one in 10 of us probably will.

The aged care reforms have made a difference in these homes, and believe me, they make you jump through hoops to prove the residents get good care.

I agree with a lot the author says, but I don't like the way he seems to suggest that families should be looking after their aged relatives at home until they die.

I wonder has the author ever had to care for a very demented relative at home before?

With no sleep overnight due to nocturnal wandering both in and outside the home, they also need to contend with faeces and urine all over the house because their parent doesn't know about toilets any more, refuse to wash and won't keep pads on either.

And while all this is going on, the parent can't even remember their kids faces anymore.

Who would condemn anyone for relinquishing care of these loved ones to a care facility? Dementia clients live for years these days, due to ever more effective medical care for the elderly.
And still no one has the guts to even have a referendum on euthanasia...

Suseonline, "Dementia clients live for years these days, due to ever more effective medical care for the elderly. And still no one has the guts to even have a referendum on euthanasia..."

It is 'interesting' that you connect the two, proving that seniors have a lot to fear from the feminist 'Progressives' aka Fabian Socialists aka International Socialists dabbling with any euthanasia policy.

Get admitted to hospital and if one is over 60 (55 for men maybe?), automatically get treated as a palliative care patient if any serious condition is suspected? Where the definition of a 'serious' medical condition would also be flexible where a senior is concerned.

Of course the availability of palliative care would be subject to budgetary constraints. That would be 'interesting' (once again) if another ageist PM like Julia Whatshername ever came along again. -You know, the 'big-boned', bottle redhead who wouldn't give a pension increase to age pensioners because 'they don't vote Labor', but she voted herself higher pay than Barack Obama, the US President!