Your advice to 40-year-olds: #4 Prepare premier care
Don’t wait to plan aged care.
In the 2025 National Seniors Social Survey we asked you what advice you’d give to people in their 40s to prepare for a possible time when they can no longer live independently.
This series of Connect articles showcases the top 8 pieces of advice from our 2,965 survey respondents.
This week, your advice concerns a topic that is intrinsically connected to the inability to live independently: aged care and supported accommodation.
This includes care in the home, residential aged care, retirement villages, and other supported housing options.
Despite its obvious relevance to the survey question, only around 300 of you – or approximately 10% of the total – mentioned it directly.
Having said that, over 500 of you emphasised the general need to plan, prepare, ask around, observe, and be aware of options available for later life. Many of you were probably thinking about aged care when you wrote this but did not go into detail – perhaps because a lot of people don’t want to think about it in depth.
Yet your consensus advice if we look at all these responses is to do the opposite: do think about aged care and its alternatives, actively research it, plan where and how to live if independence is no longer an option, and take steps to make it happen.
Know what’s possible and act
Around four-fifths of the respondents who mentioned supported housing and aged care urged Australians in their 40s to find out what options are out there and do something about it.
Some of that advice prioritised information, with comments such as “Keep informed of aged care developments”, “educate yourself on ACAT assessment process, aged care benefits and entitlements, and how the aged care system works”, and “Ensure you are aware of what government, local council and community services are available for free/low cost in your local area”.
You encouraged people to seek advice from all sources, including government information, advice from aged care services, and the views of personal contacts.
Understanding the costs of different aged care and supported housing options was particularly important for some of you, because “aged care is expensive” and a person may “need to do some serious saving for a retirement village”.
Taking action early is another key part of your advice. Many of you encouraged people to “register for my aged care at 65 even if you don't need it yet” or to “move to a retirement village in your sixties”.
While they aren’t things a person in their 40s can do, it would be possible for them to “think about [their] situation and options as well as the range of facilities out there”, “make a plan”, and “Have open conversations with loved ones about [their] care preferences”.
Advice to plan ahead is the main take home message for this topic.
To move or not to move
Making a plan, however, is easier said than done.
Planning to move to a retirement village or residential aged care is usually a decision that cannot be reversed, so it must be considered carefully.
Aye, there’s the rub.
In terms of considering these options, your advice differed.
Some of you took a pragmatic approach and recommended people “Check regularly on Aged Care facilities that are relatively close to where you currently live”, “look at the available age care villages and if they would suit your needs”, and “speak to the residents, not the management”.
Your specific tips included organising “respite in different places so you choose which one” and searching for “a suitable retirement village which can meet the needs of people through the various stages of retirement living, i.e. independence, assisted living, full care”.
Some of you were very positive, singing the praises of retirement villages, over 50s lifestyle villages, aged care apartments, and residential facilities.
Benefits you mentioned include the activities offered, the sense of community, and the lack of maintenance worries. You therefore encouraged people to consider these options and to make the move earlier rather than later.
But others among you warned against these options.
Around 50 people recommended that people in their 40s should plan to stay in their own home and access home-based care.
In many cases this view was accompanied by a dread of residential care or a bad experience with it.
Some of you also cautioned people about the financial risks of entering retirement villages under current legislation.
In general, your cautious advice was to “investigate the possible organisations; there can be 'hidden problems'”.
Dream bigger
Finally, a few of you advised younger Australians to think about alternative models such as shared accommodation, living with a carer, or living with family to obtain care from them.
You also described your ideals for the best model of supported housing. Such an ideal was outlined most articulately in this comment:
“Rally for multiple blocks of suitable cost effective, environmentally friendly housing over 50 communities to be built on owners’ land of manageable size, where care workers easily travel from door to door, in same aged care community, with large social hub, dog park, accessible pathways etc, nurse on call, security, medical and allied health home visits, grocery orders. Similar to a co-op, run and managed by same community at lower cost.”
An amazing vision of care, comfort and community.
Next month’s advice: stay connected.
Image sourced from Canva, used in accordance with Canva’s Content Licensing Agreement.
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