Getting old isn’t a sexy topic, but ageing happens to all of us, so how can we ensure we age well in order to live it up in our retirement years?
According to the World Health Organization, the population aged 65 and over is growing faster than all other age groups. It’s therefore important to make sure this cohort has the means to be socially, politically and economically engaged in communities.
Tom Robinson is joined by professors Anne-Marie Hill and Siobhan Austen to discuss how advances in technology are helping us to live better for longer, how we can remain financially independent after we retire, whether COVID-19 has revealed ageist attitudes, and key things we can do now to stay mentally and physically active at any age.
Email thefutureof@curtin.edu.au.
Curtin University supports academic freedom of speech. The views expressed in The Future Of podcast may not reflect those of the university.
Music: OKAY by 13ounce Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0 Music promoted by Audio Library
You can read the full transcript for the episode here: https://thefutureof.simplecast.com/episodes/getting-old/transcript.
Speaker 1:
00:00 This is The Future Of, where experts share their vision of the future, and how their work is helping shape it for the better.
Tom Robinson:
00:09 Hello, I'm Tom Robinson. Humanity has made some amazing scientific discoveries, but we are yet to find a way to halt the relentless march of time, and getting old is something that happens to each and every one of us. According to the World Health Organization, the population aged 65 and over is growing faster than all other age groups. So how do we ensure this cohort is healthy and happy, and can make meaningful contributions to society?
Tom Robinson:
00:37 To discuss this topic, with me today are professors Anne-Marie Hill and Siobhan Austin. Anne-Marie is a researcher in the School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science at Curtin, and Chair of the Curtin Ageing Research Network. Siobhan Austin is a Professor of Economics and Director of the Women in Social and Economic Research Cluster at Curtin. Thanks for coming in today, Anne-Marie and Siobhan.
Siobhan Austen:
00:59 Thank you.
Anne-Marie Hill:
01:00 Thanks Tom, good to be here.
Tom Robinson:
01:01 Anne-Marie, considering we all get old and are staying older for longer, is it time to change the way we think about and approach ageing?
Anne-Marie Hill:
01:09 Yes, I definitely think it is Tom. I think that there are some people who are already doing that, and we should learn from their examples, and begin to discuss this a lot more openly, and take examples of people doing some of the activities that we think demonstrate the changes that are taking place. I think that when you look around, you see that older people now work longer. You see older people taking up new careers or perhaps moving back to study; something that perhaps didn't occur in past times. You see people doing activities, you might notice masters athletes, and the build-up of masters athletes games. And in general, you notice older people taking very active roles in society.
Anne-Marie Hill:
02:00 So I do think there is an enormous change happening, and if we are going to progress as we'd like in the world, we should harness some of this power and change that's taking place in all aspects of society, but certainly I believe with our older cohort of the population, i's a timely place for us to review this.
Tom Robinson:
02:28 Siobhan, the Australian Federal Government has come under fire recently for failing to have a plan to manage COVID-19 in the aged care sector. Is this sort of representative of a wider prejudice against the elderly in Australia?
Siobhan Austen:
02:43 That's a really good question, Tom. I'm not sure that there's a wide prejudice against older people. We all have parents and grandparents who we love and admire dearly. But I think when we come to aged care, there are obviously some key problems, and some of that comes about, I think, because older people in aged care facilities, residential aged care facilities, can become somewhat invisible.
Siobhan Austen:
03:12 And talking to that idea of prejudice, I think there is a sort of a prevailing attitude that the life of the older person is somehow less worthy of being preserved than that of the younger person. So you're getting health resources not being directed towards the preservation of life for the older person. That's pretty fundamental and deeply disturbing. So there is, I think, a problem associated with looking at the older person and thinking of them as having a life worth living, and investing in whatever life is there to be lived.
Siobhan Austen:
03:58 At the moment I know within the aged care, often it's about managing the person's transition to the end of their life, rather than really maximising the opportunity for that person to live a fantastic life for the rest of the time that they've got available.
Tom Robinson:
04:20 So to live that fantastic life and to harness that sort of power and energy that are coming with older people now, I want to address this to the both of you, what are the key aspects to ageing well?
Anne-Marie Hill:
04:32 I think that it's a recognition of, for all of us at any age, that we need that balance in our life of physical, mental, psychological, social and emotional health. So our whole self is made up of all those components, and of course they interact. So certainly when people are over the age of around 60, age begins to matter less and less as a number, and I think we all notice this. We may have two acquaintances, or members of our family, perhaps they are both in their 70s, and yet we may notice they are vastly different in what they do and how they're thinking.
Anne-Marie Hill:
05:17 So being...as you become a bit older, addressing your physical and mental health is going to actually keep you fitter and able to participate, keep you independent and those are the things that are going to help you age well. So being mentally engaged, being physically engaged, being socially engaged, are key aspects to making sure that you age well, I guess I would say.
Tom Robinson:
05:44 Siobhan, what are your thoughts on how to age well?
Siobhan Austen:
05:49 I think ageing well is about living well, and I'm not that sure that the criteria are different for older people than other people. In our work we use the notion of capabilities, so capabilities are about the opportunity to lead the life that you have a reason to value, and it encompasses things like being able to be engaged with other people, to participate in issues, including politics, that are of interest and importance to you, of engaging with the environment, using your senses, having relationships, being as well as you possibly can.
Siobhan Austen:
06:38 So I suppose I push back on the notion that there's a significant difference for older people than there is for younger people, even that question of 'When is a person old?' Is really hard to define, if not impossible to define. So I think it's a continuum, and we're all living the best life that we possibly can.
Anne-Marie Hill:
07:07 So I think we both agree, Siobhan, that the actual number is very unimportant. The number of your age is far less important than what you are doing in your life.
Siobhan Austen:
07:19 Yes.
Anne-Marie Hill:
07:20 You could be any age, in fact. It's what you are doing that will lead you to age well.
Siobhan Austen:
07:30 Yeah, and I think there are problems when we say living well is different for an older person than for a younger person, because in some ways that reflects an ageist perspective and it often feels quite demeaning for the older person in that you're meant to be satisfied with something that's much less in terms of your engagement with nature, or with relationships with politics. So push back against differentiating older people from younger people in terms of what's important to their life. My own sense of things is that they're pretty much the same. They obviously take on some different forms.
Anne-Marie Hill:
08:17 Yes, I agree, and I think that we talk about, for example, in my field we talk a lot about being physically fit, and how important that is for your health. Because if you're physically fit, you're able to go out and do the things you would like to do. And so that is important at any age. And that starts as a child and moves through your schooling years, moves through your work life, moves in your social life. So yes, that concept of addressing your own health and wellbeing is important at all ages.
Anne-Marie Hill:
08:56 I think I would add that as you get older, you can have an increased presence, or an increased likelihood of some chronic diseases emerging. And so you may, as you are ageing, have to address some of those in a more tailored way. That would be what I'd add.
Tom Robinson:
09:16 How are advances in health and medical technology ensuring we stay productive and healthy as we get a bit older?
Anne-Marie Hill:
09:23 They have really, I think, helped people to continue to live very productive and healthy lives for far longer. We know that the rate of disability is very slowly reducing as people age, indicating longer and healthier lives. And advances in medicine enable us to do some of the things that might have prevented people doing them in the past. So we know that things like joint replacements, cardiac pacemakers, advances in cardiac surgery, extra good services for when people may come up against a type of cancer, good treatments there, they're all helping people to maintain much healthier lives.
Anne-Marie Hill:
10:12 And so we can't underestimate some of those advances, I think, in health for the longevity that's resulting. And I think that one of the key aspects of that, though, is access to that healthcare. And so making sure that people have equitable access so that everyone has that opportunity to be part of that advantage is going to help every individual, but help us as a society as well.
Tom Robinson:
10:41 Siobhan, in an economic sense, in maybe a personal finance sense, what are the important elements of ageing well in that space?
Siobhan Austen:
10:50 Well, you need a secure income, and an income that's adequate. So we speak about people's desire for independence, got to be a bit careful about that concept, but to be securing your income, your ability, therefore to afford the health and other services that you need, is a key determinant of people's quality of life, their capabilities. So it really is central.
Tom Robinson:
11:28 In terms of that personal income, I want to talk about the aged care pension. The pension age in Australia is set to rise from 66 to 67 years old in 2023. Why is this happening? And could the pension one day be sort of scrapped altogether?
Siobhan Austen:
11:46 A couple of questions there, Tom. So the express logic behind the increase in the pension age is to manage the cost of retirement incomes for the community as a whole, partly because they're getting an increasing number of older people. Partly too reflecting the change in people's longevity and their life course health profiles, that people are physically able, in many cases, but certainly not in all cases, to work longer, and they're going to be living longer in retirement than was the case in the past.
Siobhan Austen:
12:31 In terms of the age pension, the Australian government has sort of shifted our retirement income system towards superannuation and somewhat away from the age pension, and that's partly around trying to manage those fiscal costs. But the large majority of Australian who are retired still access an age pension, so somewhere around 75 per cent of all Australians still get at least a part age pension.
Siobhan Austen:
13:10 The pension should never be taken away, it's a key source of stability and security for older Australians, and it's especially important, of course, for people who've got relatively little superannuation. So these are people who, for one reason or another throughout their working life, they haven't been able to earn high incomes and achieve high levels of retirement savings. Now women are a key group there.
Siobhan Austen:
13:45 So the age pension makes a lot of sense in terms of being a secure and stable source of retirement income. It's an economically efficient way of providing people with retirement income. It's got significant advantages in many ways over superannuation, and it has to stay as a central pillar of the Australian retirement income system.
Tom Robinson:
14:09 I'd like to sort of speak about your research now. Anne-Marie, you've conducted research into falls prevention. As someone like myself, who is not in any way an expert in this, that sounds quite specific for falls. Can you tell me why this area of research is so important?
Anne-Marie Hill:
14:28 It is a really key area and it's interesting as to why. Really falls are known to increase when people are increasing in age. So they slowly slide up: people in their 40s and 50s fall a little more than people in their 30s, people in their 60s and 70s fall a little more, people in the 80s and 90s for more than people in their 60s and 70s.
Anne-Marie Hill:
14:58 Falls are the number one cause of injury for older people in Australia, and they cost significant billions of dollars a year in healthcare. So they are far more frequent and costly than any other type of injury for older Australians. So that alone makes them a really important point to focus on. But the key thing that falls indicate is they generally indicate that when you have a fall that there's been some decline in your physical ability. So a fall is really something of a warning bell that your actual ageing capacity, your flexibility, your strength and balance, might've reduced down a little. And so falls are, in a way, a little marker of how well we're keeping ourselves physically and mentally.
Anne-Marie Hill:
15:51 So if we know that we're doing all we can to reduce falls, we will actually be healthy ageing because the way that you prevent falls is by undertaking regular strength and balance and exercise, and by keeping as mentally alert, physically fit, as you can. And also just addressing a couple of key issues like your vision. So making sure you're wearing the right glasses, you're keeping your vision sharp. Those are the things that prevent falls. So the things that prevent falls out also nicely and neatly the things that help you age well. So consequently, we look on falls prevention as that surrogate marker of healthy ageing.
Anne-Marie Hill:
16:35 When we've done a lot of research, we find that the more people undertake regular strength and balance training, and that could be things like going dancing twice a week perhaps, playing bowls, doing their regular walking, maybe taking a swim, or it could be something like regular gardening along with lifting some weights in your own garden shed, you could be doing something like that. So it can be a whole variety of activities, but it's all going to keep you fit and active. And that's going to mean naturally you can go out, go travelling, be working, continue on with the work that you like doing. Perhaps it means you can go and help someone else out with their gardening, if that's something you're going to do. So it really enables you to keep participating and leading that very full life.
Anne-Marie Hill:
17:31 I think that brings me back to our very first discussion point here today, that the fitter and healthier you are, the more mentally engaged, you're going to get out there in society and do what you want to do. And I think that's a really important thing, because there might be some people who would like to retire, but there are many, many older people I speak to who would like to keep working, and actually keep the activities that they're doing. They may have a particular job, they may be doing pro bono work, perhaps they're doing a volunteer activity, but they would like to keep that up. And so I think it's very important that, at every age, but particularly as we get older, in this context, that we stay really able to do what we'd like to do, essentially.
Tom Robinson:
18: 20 In terms of being able to do what we want to do, the word that comes to mind is independence. And obviously, Siobhan, being in the economic and financial space, can you give me some examples of how your research is helping to ensure the financial independence of older people, and women in particular?
Siobhan Austen:
18:40 Yeah, thanks Tom. We're doing a lot of research around retirement incomes, with particular focus on the retirement incomes of women, and so our starting point is just that observation that because of the large role that women take on, which is unpaid, around the caring roles within households over the early part of the life course, they typically end up in retirement with much lower levels of retirement income of their own compared to men. So those gaps are really substantial, and with the shift in our retirement income system towards superannuation and away from the age pension, these gaps of becoming larger and more entrenched.
Siobhan Austen:
19:34 So within households, women often are the ones with very little of their own retirement income, and are more dependent on their partner in retirement for accessing income, and all of the things that it can bring. So our research is attempting to influence policy, both in terms of policy that can increase women's superannuation, so there's a range of measures that need to be put in place to make sure that women, when they're taking time out of paid work to engage in the tasks around parenting, that their superannuation balances aren't hurt, that their chances to remain engaged in paid work aren't hurt. So being able to move into a care role and then back out into the labour force, and therefore earning some retirement savings, policies that address that key.
Siobhan Austen:
20:39 And then in retirement, there's a really big issue associated with women's ability to influence, and even have knowledge of, the retirement savings that their partner, for example, holds or owns. At the moment there's no rights around even knowing what your partner's retirement savings are, no legal rights to influence decisions that he might make about that retirement savings. He could take the money out of his retirement, his superannuation account, and use it for whatever purposes he chooses. So there's a gap at the moment around that aspect of regulation of superannuation.
Siobhan Austen:
21:30 Superannuation's massively subsidised by the state, so massive amounts of tax subsidies are given over to superannuation, and therefore the state, the government, does have an ability, and we believe a role, in ensuring that that money is well used, for all of the people who depend on the superannuation savings in their retirement.
Tom Robinson:
21:56 We're obviously in the midst of the largest health pandemic, or the largest health crisis, rather, in several generations. What impact is the COVID-19 pandemic having on today's older people, and the older people of tomorrow?
Anne-Marie Hill:
22:11 I think that's a really important question, Tom, and we have noticed with our research, we've been able to measure, as WA has been able to do some work again, that a lot of our older people, and some of our patients that we have, have declined greatly because they've had to stop going to their various groups and classes, maybe going to the gym. They might've been doing walking, which they weren't doing. So people have had a significant physical decline in some instances, and we've noticed that that's corresponded then to a mental decline, of feeling perhaps anxious or isolated, so an increase in mental health issues. And what we feel is very important is that we have two arms to this, we really need to encourage people to work where they can with what they can, and we're very conscious of any digital divide that needs to be overcome.
Anne-Marie Hill:
23:12 So there are some older people who haven't got ready, knowledge of technology, and we have started a safe exercise at home website specifically to work with older people so that they have evidence-based information to go to. And I do think that that's going to be increasing, unless we get a vaccine very soon, I think we need to really have at our fingertips how we're going to address that so that older people can feel confident in being able to keep up their mental and physical strength in times where they may need to do more isolating, or more physical distancing from activities that they normally do.
Siobhan Austen:
23:57 So in terms of the economics, COVID has, first of all, reinforced the importance of the age pension. So we're doing some interviews with older couple households at the moment, looking at the effects of COVID. The people who are on the age pension, obviously their incomes are lower, but they do have the advantage of that income being relatively stable across periods of economic upturns, but also economic downturns. In contrast, people who are heavily reliant on superannuation savings are having to experience all of the uncertainty associated with the stock market fluctuations. And when you're older, once you're into retirement, your ability to bounce back from those economic downturns, and the hit that they produce in terms of the value of your savings is really limited, close to zero.
Siobhan Austen:
25:09 So the impacts of COVID on that group dependent on superannuation, are around heightened levels of uncertainty, insecurity, high levels of concern about whether or not the superannuation savings are going to last for the remainder of their life. So I think it does also speak to some of the downsides of the shift in our retirement income system away from the age pension to superannuation. It's basically produced a situation where people are much more vulnerable in retirement to these economic fluctuations. In this case, we've got one that's being produced by a pandemic.
Tom Robinson:
25:58 Well, like so many parts of our lives, I think COVID-19 is having a large and ongoing effect. That's all we have time for today. Thank you, Siobhan and Anne-Marie for sharing your knowledge on this topic.
Siobhan Austen:
26:10 It's been a pleasure, thank you.
Anne-Marie Hill:
26:11 Thanks Tom, it's been great to talk.
Tom Robinson:
26:14 You've been listening to The Future Of, a podcast powered by Curtin University. If you have any questions about today's episode, you can get in touch by following the links in the show notes. Wherever you're joining us today, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. Bye for now.