How will ageing populations affect need for care?

0:00The kids really love that playhouse, huh? Yeah, it's not just a child's playhouse. It's a rental property. Kids, off-carries roof! Someone lives in there? Lives, works, and thrives. Your wife, I reaches all the way to the playhouse? We're good ghillie nairs. It reaches everywhere. Can I check it out? Sorry. Booked solid, but the treehouse just opened up. Live without limits. Get home internet from AT&T and cover your whole house. Even your playhouse turned rental property. AT&T Extended Wifi Coverage Service Required. Limited availability. Visit AT&T.com-forwardslush-internet to learn more. News talk breakfast with Anton Savage. In association with air. With an aging population, the need for family care in Ireland is projected to rise by at least 49% by 20%. That's according to a new ESRI report. And I'm joined now by a report author and associate research officer at the ESRI doctor, Sheila Connelly. You're very welcome to the program. Look, we know the population is growing. We know it is aging and we know by 2040,

1:01those age 85 years and over is likely to double. And we talk a lot on this program and did on the station of the strain, I suppose, and the burden of trying to run a family life, look after young children, keep a job down, et cetera. In the future is the big demand on family life going to be looking after mom and dad? Hi, Karen. Yes, so I suppose in this research, we're looking at the kind of the need and the provision of family care now, but also trying to get a sense of what that might look like into the future. And as you said, our population is aging. We're seeing significant increases into the future for the 65 to 84 age group, but in particular for that 85 plus group. And they're generally the group that use the most health and social care services and the most kind of family care. So what we're seeing is that it is going to be resulting in a significant increase in somewhere in the region of 49 to 58%.

2:01So we will need a significant amount or an increase in the amount of people providing family care. And you're right that when we look at who is actually providing care, about 50% isobiles of cares are those that are in the kind of the middle age groups, the age between 40 and 60, they're looking after aging parents. And they're trying to do that, I suppose, often while looking after younger children as well, and trying to be in the labor market and participating in the labor market. And I suppose one of the concerns really with the kind of the family care is the service in particular is that there's kind of changing demographic structure. So we know that the need for care is going to increase, but the availability of cares at the same time might be decreasing because people are having fewer children. And oftentimes children, so in the past, they might have lived in close proximity to where they grew up and to where their aging parents are. But now people are, I suppose, increasingly living in more urban areas

3:04and oftentimes in other countries. So they're just not available or may not be available to provide that care that they would have done in the past. Could more people in the future have to do things like reduce their working hours or indeed leave employment or delay retirement because there isn't going to be enough formal care available for that age cohort? Yeah, and I suppose this is the one of the things that we try to tease out in little in the reports, well, how are we going to meet this additional demand or this additional need for care? You know, that 49 to 58 percent. And I suppose there's some that might be filled by family cares, but some of it likely will have to be filled by more formal sources as well. So there's a realised those challenge there in looking at that. And if the formal services aren't there, then we're really potentially putting a lot of pressure on the family carers. All right, so it's all coming down the track. Quicker perhaps than many of us are willing to face ESO rise, Dr. Sheila Connelly. Use talk, breakfast with Anton Savage in association with air.

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