This paper provides a personal perspective on the rich discussions at the Bixby Forum. The size, rate of growth and age structure of the human population interact with many other key factors, from environmental change to governance. While the details of future interactions are sometimes difficult to predict, taken together they pose sombre threats to a socially and economically sustainable futu...

An aging population, growing awareness of chronic disease, and access and navigation of health care services prompt much discussion regarding aging in Australia. Debate within academic and policy circles directs attention toward preventive health, with a growing interest in “healthy aging” and “active aging” where quality of life, rather than years of life, is important. There is little doubt t...

Using overlapping generation model, we find that population ageing does restrain housing demand. Then, we use the panel data of China’s 31 provinces between 2002 and 2013 to confirm that ageing restrains housing demand, the process of urbanization does the opposite and maybe offsets the negative effect to some extent. At present, China should continue to focus on developing urbanization rapidly...

Recent literature suggests that the increasingly blurred relationship between paid employment and retirement facilitates a retirement transition period, a life course stage, which may involve a change of residence. The role of such pre-retirement age mobility in the repopulation of rural areas has, however, received relatively little academic scrutiny. This paper draws upon findings from a two-...

Background Hospitals are constantly being challenged to provide high-quality care despite ageing populations, diminishing resources, and budgetary restraints. While the costs of care depend on the patients’ needs, it is not clear which patient characteristics are associated with the demand for care and inherent costs. Therefore, a practical explanatory model would avail healthcare professionals...

The population reached nearly 19 million in 2000, with growth at around 1.5% per year. Migration has been a key factor in population growth and the population is culturally diverse with almost 40% either born overseas or with a parent born overseas: 91% of the population is of European descent, 7% Asian and 2% Aboriginal or other. 64% of the population live in cities and towns. Future trends po...

Many of the social policy challenges facing the modern welfare state are long-term in nature, particularly the threats to future fiscal sustainability caused by population ageing. In such an environment, dynamic population microsimulation models provide one of the most useful available modelling tools for projecting the likely future distributional consequences of possible policy changes. Howev...

In an era of ‘permanent austerity’ (Pierson, 2001) and financial crisis, the issue of financing welfare state provisions is topical. Moreover, the future of welfare state funding in countries with ageing populations is no doubt raising increasing interest in scholarly as well as policy circles. Yet the financing side of welfare provision has traditionally been given little attention and remains...