Australia's ageing population and high immigration are having a huge impact on the economy | 7.30

[Music] Josefin baton and my husband Trevor Burton we'd be married 53 years and 22 years ago we had a dream of travelling around Australia so now it's come to fruition been on the road for five months and we still have a little further to go I just think it's great that we've always done things together have enjoyed it it is very special to me it has been very special to always travel with it I would never ever travel for that trailer it's it's just been our life together and this is what my life is about remember when I left school at 15 and get my first job thanks love left school at 14 the day after I left school I started working on funding this whole trip through a superannuation fund that I set up when I was 58 so I've been looking out for it now that I'm 76 it's been earning enough for us to live quite quite well to be quiet I don't think I deserve this trip I think anything you get in life it's because you've earned it you don't necessarily deserve it I feel as though we do deserve it because we have put in the the work prior where trevor was working 23 out of 24 hours a day being away from me with the children so yes I think that now we do deserve this because it's our life together this is the first disagreement we were going to be arguing about this for years now now we've never argued that's one coming weekend sake we've never argued we've discussed things and you finish up with a compromise [Music] trevor and Josephine batten from Sydney are gray nomads a movement that epitomizes Australia's ageing population [Music] Australia is at a demographic tipping point the baby boomers have turned 65 and they're retiring [Music] catering to them is a booming industry [Music] all the people consume less and save more which drive down inflation and interest rates and that's not good for retired people living off savings the costs of an aging retiring population also keep growing baby boomers by 2028 are predicted to cost the government thirty six billion dollars a year that's more than Medicare and in less than 40 years it's projected that there will be eight point eight million older Australians not contributing through income tax that's twenty two percent of the population up from fifteen percent [Music] can I joke you again hey guy just a question on generational dishes they have that all the baby food bowls is now retiring what do you think that means for the country the economy obviously you've got the baby boomers that have the houses and the money so when that then moves to their children who who might not have houses and they might go about spending that that that money in a different way do you have a sense as a young person yourself there's an intergenerational unfairness going on they've worked for the for the money and they've done for the opportunity so it's not really unfair good for you Joel good on them they they did the hard work and I know and sure like there might have been some policies that helped them back then I'm not sure but yeah look it's not it's not unfair for young people that the skills which are available the top sorts of jobs which are now available that they can work in it's a whole different world okay so maybe you're not going to buy a house until later that's not the hint of the world I'm an optimist I think that this country has a terrific illusion [Music] he'll see on lakeside and Queensland is a gated community for over 50s the Australian economy may have stalled but as the baby boomers retire they're moving to communities like this one which means business is booming over the past five years business has doubled and in the next five it's expected to double again I was a GP in a local town halfway between Brisbane of the Gold Coast I did nursing home visits I did retirement village visits and you saw there was something that was missing in the market and as I say that was history South East Queensland in particular it's the Florida of Australia we have the lifestyle we have the weather we have strong demographics great infrastructure what the modern retiree is looking for is really an upgrading of their lifestyle they want to forget having to do repairs to a home they want to forget having to mow the lawn all those things you did when you lived in the suburbs and you had kids and all seemed to have some value at the time because that's what you had to do was approximately you know getting close to a hundred thousand people that already live in these communities across the country and I think it will only increase and follow what's in America where there are millions of people that live in these communities but it's not all cruisers and caravans for the baby boomer generation an increasing number of older Australians are still having to turn up for work and that's likely because three times as many of them are still paying off their mortgages the second big demographic trend is immigration immigration doubled in 2006 and it's at roughly the same level now but it's one of the only sources of economic growth we've got left so it's unlikely to change anytime soon we come here on every Thursday evening around 6 o clock for the cricket training they're crazy for cricket hi my name is off passing meet my beautiful wife sat in the palcohol we had a beautiful family we've got three kids at the house this country has given us a lot I came in Australia 1997 on a student visa pretty much with nothing two suitcases with $1500 cash and from that my journey began I think every migrant comes here with something special in them because they want to try here you know it's funny that we're driving past this Domino's I open the storminess 2011 and nothing was here created a lot of jobs and I think I was contributing towards the society as a migrant you don't have an option go to work hard and to work hard the opportunities do come I think every migrant has gone through that journey and they are very successful because they work hard and and and they appreciate what they have again the success of the scenes from Melbourne is just part of the population boom with a high level of emigration there are of course more people wanting to work for employers that means there's no need to give anyone a pay rise we do have both developed economy stand is a very unusual population growth I mean about 1.6 percent over the last year and driven matter about 300,000 headcount the irony is all these people are coming in and want to work and argue with the biggest single problem since the GFC Oh ten years ago is that we've been struggling to get any income or wage growth why is that it's what a massive increase in labor supply but exclusive data from PwC shows that fixing Australia's employment problems could be the answer to the country's lack of economic growth the unemployment rate is tracking at about five percent which isn't too bad while women in paid work is at a record high it could be even higher and so could that of younger Australians and those over 65 in fact according to PwC if Australia improved its labour market performance to match that of Sweden the potential GDP boost would be two hundred and seven billion dollars or twelve percent another big demographic factor is the global slowdown in population growth Australia's just aren't having big families anymore I'm cam Shelby this is my wife Ellie and our little daughter Lucca she's two years over there and [Music] I want to be able to when she's older to help over house and like obviously cars and stuff myself and yeah if you times that by two or three will definitely was a very achievable [Music] more we'd have to upgrade house car everything else so it would be very costly so a lot of people always say that will change our mind we've definitely discussed it yeah we've thought long and hard about it it was sort of the money kind of thing we would like to send Lucca to a private school which is something we wouldn't be able to do if we had to I think we'll be able to travel more with one activities if she wants to do them it just just makes sense I guess to ease the financial pressure blue car is very wild definitely a handful so not sure we could probably handle another one yeah I'm gonna run the risk of having - well - I suppose she's not too bad by younger generations have less economic choice than ever well young Australians are facing a hell of a hill by coming out of university with much larger debts than their parents did myself included and they're gonna have to buy in the most expensive housing market in the world outside a few small city-states all against a backdrop of anemic income growth it's a trifecta that's pretty tough for them I do not think it's harder for younger people to save for retirement and the reason is is that they have too many influences placed on them for disposable income expenditure which most of it is unnecessary if they if they cut that out they would end up exactly in the position that army [Music] tomorrow night in our final episode it's all about China how the us-china trade war is affecting all of us and why harnessing innovation at home is more important than ever hi I'm Leigh sales thanks for watching this story if you'd like to watch more of 730 stories they are on the left of your screen and tap on the button below to subscribe and get the latest from ABC news

Channel: ABC News In-depth

Views: 313,571

Keywords: news, abc, abc news, australia, baby boomers, retirement, economy, immigration

Id: CIDjwOZGsTM

Length: 12min 49sec (769 seconds)

Published: Thu Nov 21 2019