WOMEN: SOME MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT OLDER AUSTRALIANS

Predictions that more than one out of five Australians will be over the age of 60 by the year 2001 have been worrying health and social service planners. A federal Government report on the needs of older people was released in the mid-1980s.

The report brought some contradictions to the stereotype of older people as being frail, ill, dependent and living in poverty.

• Two-thirds of people over the age of 60 reported that they were in good health.

• In 1981 almost two-thirds of retired people owned their own home without any debt, and another 18 per cent had almost finished mortgage repayments.

• The widely held belief that old people are abandoned by their children doesn’t seem to be generally true. The majority of older people who live alone do so from choice, preferring self-sufficiency to dependency. Living with children is more common among older people whose choices are limited by low income, poor health or limited ability to speak English.

Not all people who are now over the age of 65 have the means or the health to be independent, but the proportion who can really enjoy life is bound to increase. The report concluded: ‘The view of old age as a defeated stage of life, so rampant today, is unlikely to last long when the “baby boom” populace joins the ranks of the elderly’.

Official optimism about the last third of our lives! Go for it!

Community services for older people

There are many community services for older people. You’ll find these listed in the Aged Care Services’ index in the front of the white pages of the telephone book.

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