Aged Care

The Australian population is ageing rapidly, with the population aged 65 or over projected to reach 5.1 million people by 2026. Aged care is the support provided to older people who need help in their own homes or who can no longer live at home. Australia’s aged care system comprises a range of services from basic supports to enable people to remain independent at home, through to living in a residential aged care facility with access to full-time care.

Around 1.4 million people received support from aged care services in Australia during 2022-23 financial year. The majority of aged care was provided to people in their homes (or elsewhere in a community setting), reflecting people’s preferences to remain living in their community for as long as possible, and only 193,000 people living in Residential care at the end of the financial year.

In 2022-23, 98.6% of aged care services were funded by the Australian government, with total spending of over $28.3 billion dollars, and the largest proportion of this expenditure, $16.3 billion, or 58%, was on residential aged care alone.

Aged care services were operated by more than 2,203 aged care providers across not-for-profit (religious, charitable and community), government, or private organisations during 2022-23. At 30 June 2023 (or during the 2022–23 financial year for home support), not-for-profit organisations operated the majority of aged care services across Australia (58% of residential care, 67% of home care, and 73% of home support). Most providers supply exclusively one age care service type, and only 172 work with all three types of services.

Australia’s population is expected to grow and to change over coming decades. Australians are living longer, and that trend is expected to continue, leading to a rapid increase in the number of older Australians. That has implications for the demand for aged care. With older Australians making up a greater share of the community there will be increasing demands on the sector.

By 2050, the aged care workforce is expected to grow to more than one million people to meet this forecast demand for services. The aged care workforce is one of the fastest growing in Australia. The number of Aged and Disabled Carers is more than doubled between Census 2011 and 2021, up to 228,000 people. In May 2024, this had grown further to more than 330,000 people. The majority of Aged and Disabled Carers are females (74%) who work primarily part-time.