Page 1848 - Week 09 - Thursday, 19 October 1989
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The most important finding was the extent to which demographic changes in the population of the ACT are leading to rapid increases in the proportion of ageing people in the Territory. The recommendations in this report are mainly related to this one set of demographic statistics. The report examines whom we mean by the ageing and what their needs are seen to be. The ageing tend to be rather arbitrarily defined as those people who have reached retirement, 65 for men and 60 for women. As a definition, it ignores the self-employed and those who work in the home.
The committee believes that it is important to recognise that the ageing comprise an entire cohort of people who have reached a certain age. Within that cohort there is great diversity. There is one common feature that I want to emphasise. The aged are a tough bunch of people. Last week I heard a radio review which attributed to the late Bette Davis the statement, "Old age is no place for sissies". That is a very discerning remark. The very oldest of the aged in this community were young people - perhaps leaving school, perhaps still at school or starting work - during the time of the First World War, with all the stringencies that that imposed.
All of the aged in this community were entering the work force or were trying to enter the work force and start a family life in the period of the Great Depression. Many of the aged endured hardships, separations and deprivations at the time of the Second World War. So our aged community is used to hard times. These are the people who did the weekly washing in the tub in the backyard and had no refrigeration. They took for granted what we would not tolerate today. Our aged can endure much. At this stage of their lives they should not have to. I believe this report is a significant step in achieving the aim of improving their conditions.
To emphasise that there is not a simple category of the aged but that there is one group that we can put together and treat alike, let me point to a major factor. Old age is very much a women's issue. More than two-thirds of the people over 75 years of age are women. Let us look at the economic position of this generation of the ageing imposed by the fact of being women. Most of them have never had much employment; the great majority have, perhaps, spent most of their time in their homes. They did not have high levels of employment; they were not in positions where they could earn income. When they were employed, they were not among the higher paid. Very few of the aged women today have superannuation benefits.
Let us look at their social position. About one-fifth of the women over 75 have no practical support of a spouse. Most of them will see their partner through a terminal illness and they will manage on their own. Many of them are unpaid carers of the aged. So this is the women's
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