Labour of love: Australian carers provide $60.3 billion of care each year
Helen Johnson started caring for her son Ben 21 years ago, when he was diagnosed with Rubinstein-Taybi Syndrome and later with severe Autism. Helen has been the primary carer for her son through 54 surgical procedures including a post-operative complication, which left Ben a paraplegic in 2009.
Helen is just one 2.86 million informal carers across Australia who provide unpaid, life-supporting care to the community. And according to Helen, that number is set to grow.
“During their lifetime, every Australian has a high chance of either being a carer, knowing a carer or needing a carer,” she says.
“I started caring for my son over 21 years ago and in that time the demand for unpaid care has grown considerably, especially with the ageing of the population. This demand is set to continue to increase and community attitudes towards carers must grow alongside.”
The size and value of this ‘invisible workforce’ of carers has been chartered in a new report, released by Carers Australia. The Deloitte Access Economics Report estimates informal carers provide a whopping $60.3 in unpaid care each year, a figure which is equivalent to 3.8 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP).
CEO of Carers Australia, Ara Cresswell, believes the report sheds light on the thousands of people who care for friends and family in a labour of love. “Carers do a lot of heavy lifting that often goes unrecognised. In fact, the report values the provision of informal care in Australia at more than a billion dollars a week,” she says.
While Cresswell calls for greater government support for carers, the report also points out four key policy updates to not only better the welfare sector but also improve the lives of those growing old in Australia.
Proposed changes include:
- Greater flexibility in working arrangements to accommodate workers’ care responsibilities and employment preferences
- Improvement in access to carer support services, such as respite care, to alleviate the impact of caring
- Further investigation of carer perceptions of the costs and quality of formal care in order to encourage an optimal mix of formal and informal care provision
- Adapting the formal care sector to better meet the needs of older Australians from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.
Tell us: What changes would you like to see to benefit Australian carers?
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