















































AUSTRALIAN POPULATION STUDIES 2020 | Volume 4 | Issue 1 | pages 1-3 
 

 

© Piggott 2020. Published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial licence 3.0 Australia (CC BY-NC 3.0 
AU). Journal website: www.australianpopulationstudies.org 

Introduction to the special issue on 
population ageing in Australia 

 
John Piggott*  The University of New South Wales 

* Email: j.piggott@unsw.edu.au. Address: ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research,  
University of New South Wales, Level 3, 223 Anzac Parade, Kensington, NSW 2033, Australia. 

Paper received 2 May 2020; accepted 4 May 2020; published 25 May 2020. 

 

It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to write an introduction to this important issue of this new 
and exciting journal. It is very heartening that the editors have chosen to devote an entire issue to the 
topic of population ageing.  

Population ageing affects all of us and it impacts many dimensions of our lives. From changed family 
structures, workplace cultures, through to retirement support and health and aged care arrangements, 
households are facing unfamiliar, sometimes irreversible, complex and critical life choices. It is exerting 
unprecedented pressures on traditional social institutions, both in Australia and around the world. 
Sustained falls in fertility, sometimes to “super-low” levels, are combining with increasing life 
expectancy to drive global movements in labour, capital and trade in ways that are still unknown. 
Employers will have to learn to deal with and accommodate an older workforce. And governments 
under fiscal stress are reducing their commitment to pensions, health and aged care, raising new 
private sector opportunities and challenges for regulation and governance. These adjustments will have 
flow-on effects to intergenerational exchange and equity and policy formulation. As the UN has said, 
the phenomenon of population ageing is unprecedented, enduring, pervasive, and profound.  

Research is critically required to better understand how policy and practice innovation can ease our 
individual and collective paths through this transition. Longer life is one of humanity’s greatest 
achievements. It is important that this substantial contribution to human welfare is fully leveraged by 
moving to policy structures and private sector activity in the best possible way. This requires new 
knowledge and an evidence base informed by multiple disciplines.  

The need for cutting edge research related to demographic ageing is documented in the international 
literature. This is especially true when the focus is on increasing lifespan. In the 2016 application for 
renewed funding for the ARC Centre of Excellence in Population Ageing Research (CEPAR), we listed 
calls for a greater research effort in the World Health Organisation (2015) and the US National Research 
Council (2013), which emphasises the advantages of an inter-disciplinary approach to the issue. An 
especially useful benchmark is provided in National Research Council (2012). Chapter 10 identifies the 
following major research needs: demographic and health measurement and projections; capacity to 
work longer and longer working life; changes in consumption and saving; and modelling efforts and 
data needs. 

 

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30 Piggott Australian Population Studies 4 (1) 2020 

 
And there has been at least some response on the international stage. Last year, the year that Japan, 
the world’s oldest nation, hosted the G20 meetings, a task force was established under its auspices to 
examine population ageing (see, for example, Chomik et al. 2019). The World Health Organisation is 
promoting the 2020s as the “decade of healthy aging”, leading up to the deadline for the Sustainable 
Development Goals in 2030. And the US National Academy of Medicine has launched a commission on 
a “Roadmap to Health Longevity”.  

But natural population increase is in some ways more important. Australia remains a young country by 
developed country standards. Partly, this is because social and family institutions are supportive of 
fertility. But if this were all we had, our population would still age quite rapidly and total population, 
and national income, would eventually decline. The total fertility rate sits well below replacement. 

Critical to the slowing of population ageing is Australia’s immigration policies, which are well targeted 
to keeping the population young. Australia’s continuing economic prosperity depends on the 
maintenance of strong and well-targeted migration, and targeting depends on our international 
education industry. Something like half of new permanent residents in Australia have previously been 
students here.  

Even though this is primarily a journal about Australian population, it is important to recognise the 
impact on this nation of international demographic forces. China is currently younger than Australia but 
is rapidly catching up – some estimates have China older than Australia by the middle of this century. 
What does this mean for China-Australia trade? For migration? For international education services? 
And China, while enormously important, just leads the pack of emerging economies in Asia, all of them 
important to Australia, where fertility has fallen sharply, and demographic transition is an established 
dynamic. It may well be that changes in international demography end up being more important 
influences on Australia’s future than its own demographic change. 

In the meantime, there is no shortage of relevant and important research questions. For example: How 
will Australia’s age structure change in the future? Will COVID-19 make any difference to it? How will 
the fertility differential shift, and what will the social implications of the shift be? How do households 
learn to adjust to changing demographic realities, and how does cognitive decline in older ages affect 
their abilities to make major life decisions? Will product innovations help them in this challenge? How 
do organisations change their behaviour to facilitate greater participation by older workers? Is retiring 
later good for you? Does work lead to more, or less, successful ageing? 

And when you turn from understanding the micro-transition better, and ask broader social and 
economic questions, solid evidence is even harder to find. To list a few: How will an ageing 
demographic affect government budgets and services, and social and economic inequality, both 
between and within generations? How should the government best set policies to respond to 
demographic change? As retirement risks, and later life risks more generally, become more important, 
how will markets respond? Will management of this kind of risk sit at all in the private sector, or will it 
remain for government to be the insurer? How can policy innovation help shape broader and better 
allocated age-related risk sharing and management between the public sector, business, and 
households?  



Australian Population Studies 4 (1) 2020 Piggott 29 

 

 

There is at least some research on all these questions. But there are definitive answers to none of them. 
Special issues such as these serve to focus research attention on these unanswered questions, and in so 
doing, render us all a considerable service. 

Acknowledgements 

This research was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Population 
Ageing Research (project number CE170100005). 

References 

Chomik R, Piggott J and Yan S (2019) Aging, fiscal sustainability, and adequacy of social security systems. 
In Asian Development Bank Institute (ed.) Aging Societies: Policies and Perspectives. Tokyo: Asian 
Development Bank Institute; 52-64. 

National Research Council (2012) Aging and the Macroeconomy: Long-Term Implications of an Older 
Population. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 

National Research Council (2013) New Directions in the Sociology of Aging. Washington, DC: National 
Academies Press. 

World Health Organisation [WHO] (2015) World Report on Ageing and Health. Geneva: World Health 
Organisation. 

 


	It is a great privilege to have the opportunity to write an introduction to this important issue of this new and exciting journal. It is very heartening that the editors have chosen to devote an entire issue to the topic of population ageing.
	Population ageing affects all of us and it impacts many dimensions of our lives. From changed family structures, workplace cultures, through to retirement support and health and aged care arrangements, households are facing unfamiliar, sometimes irrev...
	Research is critically required to better understand how policy and practice innovation can ease our individual and collective paths through this transition. Longer life is one of humanity’s greatest achievements. It is important that this substantial...
	The need for cutting edge research related to demographic ageing is documented in the international literature. This is especially true when the focus is on increasing lifespan. In the 2016 application for renewed funding for the ARC Centre of Excelle...
	And there has been at least some response on the international stage. Last year, the year that Japan, the world’s oldest nation, hosted the G20 meetings, a task force was established under its auspices to examine population ageing (see, for example, C...
	But natural population increase is in some ways more important. Australia remains a young country by developed country standards. Partly, this is because social and family institutions are supportive of fertility. But if this were all we had, our popu...
	Critical to the slowing of population ageing is Australia’s immigration policies, which are well targeted to keeping the population young. Australia’s continuing economic prosperity depends on the maintenance of strong and well-targeted migration, and...
	Even though this is primarily a journal about Australian population, it is important to recognise the impact on this nation of international demographic forces. China is currently younger than Australia but is rapidly catching up – some estimates have...
	In the meantime, there is no shortage of relevant and important research questions. For example: How will Australia’s age structure change in the future? Will COVID-19 make any difference to it? How will the fertility differential shift, and what will...
	And when you turn from understanding the micro-transition better, and ask broader social and economic questions, solid evidence is even harder to find. To list a few: How will an ageing demographic affect government budgets and services, and social an...
	There is at least some research on all these questions. But there are definitive answers to none of them. Special issues such as these serve to focus research attention on these unanswered questions, and in so doing, render us all a considerable service.
	Acknowledgements
	References

