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released: 28 Oct 2004 author: AIHW media release

This report on informal care is a joint initiative of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare and the Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing. Its genesis was an AIHW analysis of the likely future impact of certain social trends including, but not limited to, a reduced willingness of women to substitute unpaid caring work for paid employment.Building on this earlier work, the present report uses the results of the 1998 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers to present a picture of informal care in Contemporary Australia - who are the primary carers, who do they assist, and what does caring involve? It explores the impact of caring work and patterns of informal service use with informal care.

ISSN 1325-6025; ISBN 978 1 74024 415 2; Cat. no. AGE 41; 108pp.; Out of print

Full publication

Publication table of contents

  • Preliminary material (178K PDF)
    • Half title page and verso
    • Title page and verso
    • Contents
    • List of tables
    • List of figures
    • Preface
    • Acknowledgments
    • Summary
  • Sections
    1. Introduction (294K PDF)
      1. Background
      2. A demographic profile of primary carers
      3. Relationship and the motivation to care
      4. Labour force participation
      5. Discussion
    2. Care recipients and the work of carers
      1. Introduction
      2. Disability, ageing and the need for care
      3. The nature and intensity of caring work
      4. Impact of the caring role on carers
      5. Discussion
    3. The changing context
      1. Introduction
      2. Population disability
      3. Population ageing
      4. Living arrangements and family formation
      5. Combining work and family
      6. Discussion
    4. Scenario projections 2003-2013 (310K PDF)
      1. Background
      2. Approach
      3. Measures and data sources
      4. Construction of future scenarios
      5. Outline of the projection analysis
      6. Informal care in 1998
      7. Projection results
      8. Projected total carer pools
      9. Conclusion
      10. Discussion
    5. Informal care and formal services
      1. Introduction
      2. Patterns of service use by carer availability among CACP recipients
      3. Carer support programs
      4. Discussion
    6. Conclusion
  • End matter

Recommended citation

AIHW 2004. Carers in Australia: assisting frail older people and people with a disability. Aged care series no. 8. Cat. no. AGE 41. Canberra: AIHW.