How Have Social Policies and Changes to the Australian Welfare State Affected the Aged Population.

This essay aims to represent an argument between two view points: to remain in their own homes with ongoing support from families and the health system or going to residential aged care of elderly in Australia. Especially, it deals with the issue of increasing ageing population in Australia includes statistical information highlighting some causes and telltales. The context presented is economic and social. It also looks at the effects that increasing of the ageing population has on society, the individual and the Australian economy.

There is diversity among all Canadian, hence there is differences among the aging population. Not all seniors are aging well and have the appropriate programs and services to meet their needs. Some seniors are victims of abuse and some are living in isolation and poverty. Some seniors suffer from chronic illness and other socio-economic factors limit the amount of money they can put away for retirement. Hence these middle and low income elderly retirees will have to depend mainly on the pension plan that is offered between the age of 60- 65. The age of 60-65 is regarded in Canada as the age of retirement. This paper will focus mainly on the disadvantaged older populations. The disadvantaged older populations are those who are currently

A review on pensions may postpone the retirement until citizens are in their 70’s in the UK. The review is most likely to affect those under the age of 55. The review, would needto follow current legislation, and “ ‘make sure that the state pension is sustainable and affordable for future generations.’ ”. The question of if the state pension system will go hand and hand with a rising life expectancy rate in the long run. The review will also take in consideration that should the retirement age still increase of life expectancy slows. The pension age currently in the UK is 67 as of 2008 for both male and female citizens. Pensions minister Baroness Roz Altmann states that “ ‘ It’s not just about raising it [state pension age],

CPS supports the proposed primary objective of superannuation being able to provide income for retirement to substitute. Enshrining this objective in legislation is an important step in safeguarding Australia’s retirement income system for the citizen of Australia. It is critical that the long-term sustainability of the superannuation system is not undermined by shorter-term political objectives due to the fact thinking that the retirement income system wouldn’t provide accurate income.

The article titled ‘Who is missing out? Hardship among low income Australians’ (Healey, 2007, p. 8) summarises outcomes and key findings from the very first report by the Australian Council of Social Services, released in 2007 (Australian Council of Social Service, 2014, p. 8). The report reviewed both the accuracy of social security payments and the government’s tax-transfer system (Healey, 2007, p. 8) with considerations of the government at the time, reviewing the entire Australian social security system. The independent report extracted direct experiences of people affected by poverty and inequalities from its diverse member base, with particular focus on households that were receiving social security

Finally, a generation X female in the Leichhardt LGA will accumulate a greater amount of superannuation due to higher earnings than Hawkesbury LGA. At retirement Rachael will receive $449,271.67 in superannuation which is $146,304.61 more than a generation X female from Hawkesbury LGA. Surprisingly Rachael’s fund will last for 8 years after retirement, 1 years less than a generation X from Hawkesbury and her time in poverty is for 14 years which is also 1 years more. This could be a result of female receiving less income than male therefore her lack of income growth cannot maintain her higher cost of living than a generation X Hawkesbury female after

The information on the scale of poverty among elderly receiving state pension came after last year`s government decision to remove ten millions pounds from the budget of Social Security,which resulted in the benefit cuts for those with the lowest incomes. While those cuts did not affect state pension itself, which currently stands at £ 204.15 full rate per week for single person and £339.01 per couple (gov.je/benefits/pensionsretirement), it had an impact on additional benefits claimed through means tested Income Support (IS) which are household benefits designed to aid in meeting the most basic needs of a Jersey resident such as `the cost of living, housing, medical needs, childcare and carers` (http://www.gov.je/Benefits/IncomeSupport/Pages/index.aspx). The rationale behind the state pension with the Income Support components was that it would lift households at least to the level of a Relative

While Australian superannuation was recognised as a private pension (Orenstein 2008, p. 27), others believed that it was a private capital accumulation (Jefferson & Preston 2005, p. 80). Privatisation is the process that the government shifted the responsibility to individuals, meanwhile, they emphasised the greater supports from private sectors (Shaver 2001, P. 189). At the beginning, the national superannuation was promoted as a national insurance. However, the Labor government changed the administration of national superannuation from the state to the private sectors, because they believed in neoliberalism. The government emphasised on market-based approach and the supports from employers (Sharp 2009, p. 202). As a result, people started to argue about the privatised superannuation acted as a complement for the age pension to produce safe retirement (Foster 1988, p. 179). In the meanwhile, trade unions promoted that the superannuation should be provided to all employees, not only for rich and public sector employees, because this was a ‘industrial right’ (Bateman & Piggott 1996, p. 7). Generally, people believed that the shift from the public superannuation to private superannuation, indicated a ‘risk shift’ from the government to individuals (Hacker

This research paper examines the causal effect of Australia’s Superannuation Guarantee on household saving behavior to determine the extent to whether compulsory pension schemes have a positive impact on household wealth and their subsequent retirement incomes. The purpose of this study is to explore whether Superannuation Guarantee is an adequate framework as a vehicle for saving for retirement, as it encourages households to provide for themselves in retirement, rather than rely solely on the age pension or the PAYG social security programs. By focusing on the influence of compulsory pension accounts on household wealth, voluntary saving for retirement, and timing of retirement, this paper attempts to explore these areas in order to gain an understanding of how households change their saving behavior in response to Australian’s Superannuation.

Household income inequality has increased in a large majority of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries. The widening gap between the lower middle class, poor households, and especially the retired compared to the rest of society has become a major concern for policy makers and governments. An analysis of the social impact of the 2008 economic crisis by the OECD (2009) showed that pensioners had been largely spared from benefit cuts and sometimes their public pension benefits increased as part of economic stimulus programmes.

News about reversing Old Age Security eligible age back to 65 and including this in Liberal’s first budget which is announced by Prime Minister recently, has been intensively debated (Harris, 2016). This also raises people’s concerns about retirement pension fund defined as investment plan or fund that provide employees with a certain amount of income during their retirement (Morley, 2012). Reversing retiring age is a controversial policy because it has two sides. Retiring earlier means that employees can start enjoying their rest of life earlier, whereas, in the meanwhile, they need more money to cover their living spending during their longer retirement period. Typically, both employees and employers contribute a certain amount of money

In New Zealand, social policy is about trying to ensure those in society who have less by getting help through different resources and services. A reoccurring function that keeps arising within New Zealand society, however, is the unemployment factor, as it has lead to recent welfare reforms. Due to the cause of people being unemployed it then leads them to a welfare dependency which they then become more reliant on benefits and tend to pass this easy knowledge on to the next generation and so on. Thus, the welfare system within New Zealand has had a negative impact on health, social and economic consequences for benefit recipients and their families. A social development and youth affairs minister, Paula Bennett, from the National Party and New Zealand Politician, wrote an Amendment Bill on this issue of the welfare system. This essay will firstly describe the key problem in which Paula Bennett identifies in her Amendment Bill and then the type of issues or assumptions it serves, and then examine the theories that best reflect this argument that she states. Therefore, social policy is concerned with the ways of understanding structural factors that shape social change and social problems, in this case the welfare system Amendment Bill by Bennett.

The retirement industry has been growing over the past decades. The percentage of the Australian population over the age of 55 is at its highest of 23% and is growing at an average rate of 3% each year. In certain parts of the country like the NSW and ACT, which has a high concentration of retirement communities, the growth rate is about 7%. Based on recent data published by Australian Bureau of Statistics This percentage is also expected to grow as the first of the "baby boomer" generation begins to reach retirement age in the next decade.

Male residents approximately occupied 49% of the total population of Tasmania, compared with female residents accounting for 51% of total population. In contrast to Australia, Tasmania has a smaller proportion of population aged from 20 to 44, while it has a larger proportion of elderly people. As seen from table 2, among population from pre-schooler (0-4) to parents and homebuilders (35-49), only the secondary schooler (12-17) accounts for a slightly more percentage than it is for Australia, the rest is evidently fewer compared to Australia. The proportion of population which is over 50 years old in Tasmania is much higher than it is in Australia which means Tasmania is a state with a large number of aging people at present.

According to the Office of National Statistics (ONS), it is projected that about 36% of the population born in 2013 will live past the age of 100 as compared to the 1940’s where mortality was estimated at 68years . These constant and gradual improvement in longevity estimates, will give rise to a higher ageing population being formed relative to a lower increase in working population. Consequently all current tax incomes to the government will not be sufficient to be pay the retirement income for the aging population, hence increasing the burden on the government to finance the ageing as it cannot sustain the pension system.