Population aged 50 and older

IBISWorld expects the population aged 50 and older to increase by 1.8% during 2025-26, to reach 9,808,003 people. The size of this demographic is expected to continue growing during the year, due to continued advancements in healthcare and medical technology. The health consciousness index is also expected to continue its upward trend in 2025-26, signifying that Australians are increasingly looking after their health and wellbeing and living longer as a result.

The population aged 50 and older has grown strongly over the past five years. However, this growth has been slower than the increases throughout the 2000s and early to mid 2010s, when much of the baby boomer generation were reaching 50 years old. The baby boomer generation includes people that were born between 1946-47 and 1964-65, when birth rates increased substantially heightened due to post-war government policies that actively promoted population growth. Between 2000-01 and 2014-15, the annual growth in the demographic's population ranged between 2.3% and 3.0%. Since this time, the over 50 population has only exceeded 2.3% once (2019-20), indicating the slowdown in the demographic's growth rate.

Growth in the population aged 50 and over still exceeds the growth of the total population. The strong growth in this demographic is due to the make up of Australia's population pyramid, as over 6.0% of the total population is currently aged between 50-54. Increasing life expectancy has also contributed to an expansion in the population aged over 50. Overall, IBISWorld forecasts the population aged 50 and older to grow at a compound annual rate of 1.9% over the five years through 2025-26.