The number of young people serving as carers has skyrocketed as the population ages and the percentage of Australians living with disability continues to rise.
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Australian Bureau of Statistics data reveals 391,300 Australians younger than 25 were caring for someone in 2022, compared to 235,300 in 2018.
According to the data, the number of Australians living with disability rose by almost 4 per cent from 2018-2022.
As of 2022, 5.5 million Australians were living with disability, accounting for 21.4 per cent of the total population. This percentage increased from 17.7 per cent in 2018.
Over the same period, the percentage of Australians aged 65 or older increased from 15.9 per cent to 17.1 per cent.
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Unsurprisingly, the likelihood of disability increased by age, with 86.3 per cent of men and 82.2 per cent of women aged 90 or older living with disability in 2022. People aged 85-89 (76.8 per cent of men and 77.6 per cent of women) and 80-84 (66.6 per cent of men and 68.5 per cent of women) were the next most likely age groups to be living with disability.
The percentage of Australians identifying as carers rose by more than 1 per cent over the four-year period. A total of 3 million Australians were caring for someone in 2022, amounting to 11.9 per cent of all Australians living in households. This percentage increased from 10.8 per cent in 2018.
There were 1.2 million Australians serving as primary carers in 2022, with 43 per cent of them living with disability themselves.
Females (12.8 per cent) were more likely to be serving as carers than males (11.1 per cent.)
