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The Ageing Australia Study: Capturing Attitudes Towards Ageing and Older People Across Four Generations

Australia’s ageing population is frequently framed through competing narratives. The benefits of increasing longevity and health are frequently set against concerns over the resources required to sustain an aging population. These tensions reflect and construct broad social attitudes and have consequences for the lives of older people in public and private domains, including health care and aged care, the workforce, and personal agency and wellbeing.

To capture current attitudes and evaluations of ageing and older people, we surveyed 800 participants across four generational groups, commonly referred to as Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers. Data were collected on qualitative responses to open ended questions and quantitative responses across five validated attitude related measures: the Ageing Semantic Differential, Expectations Regarding Ageing, Relating to Older People Evaluation, Pigram Perceived Ageism Subscale, and the Intergenerational Tension Scale.

Analysis indicated generational differences across elements of all measures. Specifically:

  • Younger generations reported less favourable attitudes toward older people and more negative expectations of ageing.
  • The youngest generations reported more ageist behaviour towards older people and higher levels of intergenerational tensions.
  • Older generations perceived Australia as a more ageist society.

This project provides new evidence on generational differences in attitudes toward ageing and older people in Australia and highlights the complex and sometimes conflicting ways age related discrimination is experienced and expressed across generations. Through identifying the attitudinal patterns that influence social cohesion, intergenerational relationships, and the wellbeing of older adults this project provides an evidence base to inform public education campaigns, policy development, and interventions aimed at fostering more positive understandings of ageing.

Data from this project has supported completion of two Undergraduate Psychology Honours projects and two Postgraduate Clinical Masters projects.

Funding agency

Centre for Research in Aged Care: ECU Strategic Research Centre

Project duration

August 2023 – August 2026

Publications

  • Forthcoming

Presentations

  • Cain, P.,Dussage, S., Gringart, E. (2024).Addressing Ageism: Recommendations from Psychology. Presentation at Age Friendly Australia national Conference, December 4-5, Perth.

Researchers

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