Notes on the data: Income support

Age pensioners, June 2023

Policy context: People who are described as ‘age pensioners’ are those who receive either an Age Pension from the Department of Human Services (Centrelink) or a Service Pension (Age) from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (data not included: this group comprised 1.7% of all age pensioners in 2022) . An Age Pension is an income paid by the Australian Government to those who generally do not have (or do not have much) income from other sources and who have reached the qualifying age, with the amount paid subject to income and asset tests.

Although older people today, on average, are wealthier than they were in previous generations, these averages mask significant variation in economic circumstances. There are large differences in the distribution of income, wealth and home ownership between older people, with the most disadvantaged being those who live alone and do not own their own home. Those people who enter older age as renters, low paid workers, or who have been out of the labour market for long periods of time (due to unemployment, disability or family responsibilities among other reasons) are the most likely to be exposed to financial vulnerability in older age. Financial limitations may lead to social exclusion, which can result in reduced quality of life, preventable illness and disability, premature institutionalisation and death [1].

Reference

The Benevolent Society. A roadmap for ageing well: position paper. Sydney: The Benevolent Society; 2010.

Notes: The Age Pension is available from the Department of Human Services (Centrelink) for persons who have reached Age Pension age. The Age Pension age depends on a person's date of birth, as follows:

65 years and 6 months, if you were born between 1 July 1952 and 31 December 1953
66 years, if you were born between 1 January 1954 and 30 June 1955
66 years and 6 months, if you were born between 1 July 1955 and 31 December 1956
67 years, if you were born on or after 1 January 1957.

Despite these changes in the Age Pension age, the population used to calculate the proportion of the population receiving the Age Pension remains at 65 years for this data release.

A very small number of Local Government Areas (LGAs) have proportions in excess of 100%: these are clearly not accurate. The reason for this is not clear, although it may be the result of the address of the beneficiary not being allocated to the correct small geographical area by the correspondence files available; it may also reflect inaccuracies in the denominator (the population), as population estimates at the small area level for age groups can be unreliable. It also indicates that it is possible that percentages of less than 100% may also be overstated. Population Health Area (PHA) data were derived from publicly-available data that were already suppressed at the Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2). Therefore, if a PHA included an SA2 with suppressed data, there could be an undercount in the PHA. However, the loss of counts due to the use of this data set was negligible (0.01% lost). As State and Territory totals were also provided, data in the ‘Unknown’ data row in the Excel data workbooks are calculated as the difference between the sum of the PHA data and the State/Territory totals; these figures therefore include the sum of the suppressed SA2 cells.

Data cells with counts of less than five were suppressed (confidentialised).

Geography: Data available by Population Health Area, Local Government Area, Primary Health Network, Quintile of socioeconomic disadvantage of area and Quintiles within PHNs, and Remoteness Area

Numerator: People in receipt of an Age Pension from Department of Human Services (Centrelink) at June 2023

Denominator: Persons aged 65 years and over at June 2022 (population data at June 2023 not available at time of publication)

Detail of analysis: Per cent

Source: Compiled by PHIDU based on data from DSS Payment Demographic Data, June 2023, available from https://data.gov.au/data/dataset/dss-payment-demographic-data, accessed 20 December 2023; and Australian Bureau of Statistics Estimated Resident Population, 30 June 2022.