Unpaid care provision
For the purposes of the ABS Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers (SDAC), a carer is a person who provides ongoing help to, or supervision of, people with disability or a long-term health condition, or people aged 65 and over [1]. Survey results showed that people aged 65 and over represented 23% of all carers in 2015.
Some 620,000 (18%) older Australians provided care—and over 1 in 3 older carers (234,000 people) were primary carers. More than half (52%) of older carers themselves had some degree of disability.
Unlike younger carers, the majority of whom were women, older carers were made up of a similar proportion of men and women (52% and 48%, respectively). However, this changes as age increased, with men becoming more likely to be carers than women. Men accounted for 56% of carers in the 75–84 year age group and 66% of carers aged 85 and over. Despite this, women made up the majority of older primary carers (57%).
The number of informal carers increased from 521,000 older people in 2009 to 620,000 people in 2015. The largest increase was in the number of carers aged 85 and over, which increased by around 42%. The number of male carers aged 85 and over increased the most (45%) between 2009 and 2015 [1].