“Old age”, Leon Trotsky famously said, “is the most unexpected of all things that happen to a man.” But if becoming old catches us each by surprise, aging is one of the most predictable of all social phenomena, with far-reaching implications for our social and economic future.

In this article, we focus on one dimension of those implications – the impacts of population aging on aged care policy. We begin by considering the consequences of population change for the demand and supply of aged care; we then examine the effects of government policy as it has developed over the years in Australia; and lastly, we turn to the future financing of aged care. Click here to view the paper.