Ageing baby boomers: mid-life adults’ attitudes, plans and expectations of their future ageing in New Zealand

Abstract

Objective: To gain an understanding of how the experiences of caring for an older person had influenced mid-life adults attitudes to ageing, plans and expectations of the own future older years, including housing, finances and health, and how their support needs might be met. Additionally, consideration of how whether the New Zealand Government funding for the nursing and carer workforce to support services for older people met the policies aimed at addressing the needs of the ageing population. Design: Sequential mixed methods design. Setting: Auckland, a city of 1.5 million people and the largest urban area in New Zealand. Participants and methods: Six focus groups attracted 36 participants, all met the criteria age range of 40-64 years, with 33 women and three men. Eight of the participants identified as Māori while the other 25 were predominately New Zealanders of European descent. The five interviewees were all women. The 127 postal survey respondents were also within the 40-64 years age range with a total of 83 females and 44 males. Ethnicity of respondents’ included Māori, Pacific Island, Asian and Indian with the greatest number being New Zealand European. Results: The results identified motivation for mid-life adults’ support of older relatives, nature of assistance, caregiver stress, and difficulties accessing formal support services. Participants revealed concern about retirement housing suitability, financial preparedness, and health with respect to future ageing. While they expressed the wish to not burden younger relatives with their ageing care needs they also communicated the desire to live close to family as they aged with the hope of receiving support should this be need in the future. Many participants revealed an unwavering expectation of state-funded support for their age-related functional needs and residential care based on the premise of recompense for years of paying taxes. Conclusions: The findings have revealed significant implications for the families of the ageing population as well as the New Zealand government agencies committed to provide the disability support services for older people that will enable them to continue living independently. The perceived inadequacy of support services and nursing and careworker personnel to provide care may leave many older people reliant on relatives to support their daily functional activities. With many younger family members engaged in paid employment and managing their own family’s needs such expectations are unrealistic, meaning older people will make increasing demands on a limited disability support service. The apparent dislocation between government policies, funding of disability support services, and the inadequate numbers of nurses and carerworkers points to a significant challenge for the provision of services that meet the needs of the increasing numbers of older people both currently and into the future.