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Objective: Australian policy-making needs better information on the prevalence, context and types of discrimination reported by people living with mental health conditions and the association of exposure to discrimination with experiencing a barrier to accessing healthcare.Methods: Secondary data analysis using the national representative General Social Survey 2014 to examine discrimination and healthcare barriers. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine the association between discrimination and barriers to healthcare.Results: Around 10% of older adults without mental health conditions reported an instance of discrimination in the last 12 months, compared to 22-25% of those with mental health conditions. Approximately 20% with mental health conditions attributed discrimination to their health conditions, along with other characteristics including age. Discrimination was reported in settings important to human capital (e.g., healthcare, workplace), but also in general social and public contexts. Everyday discrimination (OR=2.11 p<.001), discrimination in healthcare (OR=2.92 p<.001), and discrimination attributed to the person's health condition (OR=1.99 p<.05) increased the odds of experiencing a barrier to care two-to-three-fold. For each type of discrimination reported (e.g., racism, ageism etc.), the odds of experiencing a barrier to care increased 1.3 times (OR=1.29 p<.01). Conclusion:This new population-level evidence shows older adults with mental health conditions are experiencing discrimination at more than two-fold compared to those without mental health conditions. Discrimination was associated with preventing or delaying healthcare access. These findings indicate that future strategies to promote mental healthcare in underserved groups of older people will need to be multidimensional and consideration given to address discrimination.

In recent years, Australia's older population (aged 65 and over) has been growing rapidly, accompanied by a shift in its country of birth composition. Although a great deal of research has been undertaken on past and current aspects of Australia's migrant groups, little attention has been paid to future demographic trends in older populations. The aim of this paper is to examine recent and possible future demographic trends of Australia's migrant populations at the older ages. We present population estimates by country and broad global region of birth from 1996 to 2016, and then new birthplace-specific population projections for the 2016 to 2056 period. Our findings show that substantial growth of the 65+ population will occur in the coming decades, and that the overseas-born will shift from a Europe-born dominance to an Asia-born dominance. Cohort flow (the effect of varying sizes of cohorts moving into the 65+ age group over time) will be the main driver of growth for most older birthplace populations. The shifting demography of Australia's older population signals many policy, planning, service delivery and funding challenges for government and private sector providers. We discuss those related to aged care, health care, language services, the aged care workforce, regulatory frameworks and future research needs in demography and gerontology.

Using Indonesian National Socioeconomic Surveys, this article outlines the trends in spousal differences in age and educational attainment from a sample of matched husband–wife data in the early 1980s and 2010. The spousal age gap has declined from 6.4 to 4.7 in the three decades. A trend in assortative mating is maintained as 50% of married couples have equal education levels in both 1982 and 2010. The proportion of women marrying someone of higher education is declining, and conversely, the proportion of women “marrying down” is rising. Higher level of wife’s education and increasing age at first marriage are found to be negatively associated with spousal age gap. Along with development, social change, and the recent accomplishment toward gender parity across all education levels in the country, changing patterns in such gaps are bound to transform gender relations and the power dynamics within Indonesian families.

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