Post by Banker on Dec 14, 2011 16:27:43 GMT 7
The Australian reports this morning that mental illness is now the most common condition among disability pensioners:
MENTAL illness has overtaken musculoskeletal problems as the prime reason for obtaining the disability support pension, as new figures show a third of DSP recipients have been on income support for more than 15 years.
Back in June, I wrote about what this might mean for disability pension reform:
WHEN asked to imagine a disability pensioner, most of us would think of someone in a wheelchair or a former tradesman with a bad back. Until now, these stereotypes have been based fairly firmly in truth. In the future, they will be much less so.
While the typical disability pensioner is an older person with a musculoskeletal condition, new data from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs suggests in the future disability support pension recipients will be likelier to have a mental illness. Consequently, they will be much younger, too.
These changes will have profound implications for how disability pensions are designed.
About one-third of disability pensioners suffer musculoskeletal or connective tissue conditions, a figure that has remained steady during the past decade or so. This diverse group includes people whose movement is severely restricted and who need constant assistance, as well as people with much less serious complaints including the fabled bad backs.
They remain the largest group of disability support pensioners. But they won’t be for long.
The proportion of disability pensioners with psychological or psychiatric conditions is steadily rising. In 2001, this group made up less than 23 per cent of disability pensioners. By last year, it accounted for almost 29 per cent.
Proportionally fewer new grants are being made to people with bad backs, more are being made to those with mental illness.
Soon — perhaps even this year — psychological and psychiatric conditions will overtake musculoskeletal conditions as the primary reason that Australians are granted disability pensions.
Grants to people with musculoskeletal conditions fell from 30 per cent of the total to 28.5 per cent between 2006 and last year; in the same period grants to people with psychological or psychiatric conditions rose from 24 per cent to 27 per cent. For men, mental illness has already taken top spot.
These relatively minor shifts may not seem significant. But the overwhelmingly long-term nature of the disability support pension means small changes now can have a big cumulative effect in the future.
Another significant difference between disability pensioners with mental illness compared with those with musculoskeletal conditions is their average age: 60 per cent of disability pensioners with musculoskeletal conditions are over 55, compared with 30 per cent of those with psychological or psychiatric conditions.
As the group of pensioners with mental illness grows, the overall age of disability support pensioners will fall.
Three-quarters of all DSP recipients have been on income support for 10 years or more, and few leave the disability pension for any reason other than a move to the aged pension or death.
If this trend continues, most of the people being granted disability pensions now will still be on the payment in decades to come.
If the present low exit rates continue (about 1 per cent leave for the workforce each year), in decades to come we can expect to see people — who became pensioners in their 20s or 30s — staying on the pension for even longer than the present 12-year average.
Unless we find a better way to keep people with mental illness in the workforce, the number of disability pensioners will balloon.
There is a lock-in effect: once on a disability pension there is little incentive, and certainly no compulsion, to look for a job or undertake rehabilitation.
This design made sense when many recipients were blue-collar workers worn out by years of manual labour. But this model now makes much less sense. It will be even more ineffective in the future, as the profile of disability support pensioners shifts further towards people with psychological conditions.
Sufferers of mental illness can experience fluctuations in their capacity for work over several years. Many respond well to treatment and can later permanently rejoin the workforce.
There has been a fundamental shift in attitudes towards the disability pension in Australian policy circles in recent years.
Once taboo, the idea that some people with disabilities should be required to work — and that they would in fact personally benefit from doing so — is widely accepted.
This government and the previous one have made important changes to the way new disability pension applicants are assessed. Many are being diverted to other payments before they reach the disability pension, increasing the chance that they will return to the workforce.
Shifts in the composition of people on the disability pension suggest that more substantial reforms designed to get existing recipients back into work will soon be required. Increasingly, the model looks broken.
The Gillard government has taken the first tentative steps in this direction. From next year, those recipients under 35 with some ability to work will be required to attend quarterly Centrelink interviews.
But as the number of people with psychological conditions on disability pensions increases, and the age profile of disability pensioners shifts, we will need to look at more fundamental ways to keep relatively young people with a disability off welfare and in the workforce.
For many people with mental illness, the disability pension as a one-way street with few requirements and little help to get back into the workforce is simply not good enough.
www.incise.org.au/2011-12-14/we-said-it-first-mental-illness-and-disability-pension-reform/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=we-said-it-first-mental-illness-and-disability-pension-reform
MENTAL illness has overtaken musculoskeletal problems as the prime reason for obtaining the disability support pension, as new figures show a third of DSP recipients have been on income support for more than 15 years.
Back in June, I wrote about what this might mean for disability pension reform:
WHEN asked to imagine a disability pensioner, most of us would think of someone in a wheelchair or a former tradesman with a bad back. Until now, these stereotypes have been based fairly firmly in truth. In the future, they will be much less so.
While the typical disability pensioner is an older person with a musculoskeletal condition, new data from the Department of Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs suggests in the future disability support pension recipients will be likelier to have a mental illness. Consequently, they will be much younger, too.
These changes will have profound implications for how disability pensions are designed.
About one-third of disability pensioners suffer musculoskeletal or connective tissue conditions, a figure that has remained steady during the past decade or so. This diverse group includes people whose movement is severely restricted and who need constant assistance, as well as people with much less serious complaints including the fabled bad backs.
They remain the largest group of disability support pensioners. But they won’t be for long.
The proportion of disability pensioners with psychological or psychiatric conditions is steadily rising. In 2001, this group made up less than 23 per cent of disability pensioners. By last year, it accounted for almost 29 per cent.
Proportionally fewer new grants are being made to people with bad backs, more are being made to those with mental illness.
Soon — perhaps even this year — psychological and psychiatric conditions will overtake musculoskeletal conditions as the primary reason that Australians are granted disability pensions.
Grants to people with musculoskeletal conditions fell from 30 per cent of the total to 28.5 per cent between 2006 and last year; in the same period grants to people with psychological or psychiatric conditions rose from 24 per cent to 27 per cent. For men, mental illness has already taken top spot.
These relatively minor shifts may not seem significant. But the overwhelmingly long-term nature of the disability support pension means small changes now can have a big cumulative effect in the future.
Another significant difference between disability pensioners with mental illness compared with those with musculoskeletal conditions is their average age: 60 per cent of disability pensioners with musculoskeletal conditions are over 55, compared with 30 per cent of those with psychological or psychiatric conditions.
As the group of pensioners with mental illness grows, the overall age of disability support pensioners will fall.
Three-quarters of all DSP recipients have been on income support for 10 years or more, and few leave the disability pension for any reason other than a move to the aged pension or death.
If this trend continues, most of the people being granted disability pensions now will still be on the payment in decades to come.
If the present low exit rates continue (about 1 per cent leave for the workforce each year), in decades to come we can expect to see people — who became pensioners in their 20s or 30s — staying on the pension for even longer than the present 12-year average.
Unless we find a better way to keep people with mental illness in the workforce, the number of disability pensioners will balloon.
There is a lock-in effect: once on a disability pension there is little incentive, and certainly no compulsion, to look for a job or undertake rehabilitation.
This design made sense when many recipients were blue-collar workers worn out by years of manual labour. But this model now makes much less sense. It will be even more ineffective in the future, as the profile of disability support pensioners shifts further towards people with psychological conditions.
Sufferers of mental illness can experience fluctuations in their capacity for work over several years. Many respond well to treatment and can later permanently rejoin the workforce.
There has been a fundamental shift in attitudes towards the disability pension in Australian policy circles in recent years.
Once taboo, the idea that some people with disabilities should be required to work — and that they would in fact personally benefit from doing so — is widely accepted.
This government and the previous one have made important changes to the way new disability pension applicants are assessed. Many are being diverted to other payments before they reach the disability pension, increasing the chance that they will return to the workforce.
Shifts in the composition of people on the disability pension suggest that more substantial reforms designed to get existing recipients back into work will soon be required. Increasingly, the model looks broken.
The Gillard government has taken the first tentative steps in this direction. From next year, those recipients under 35 with some ability to work will be required to attend quarterly Centrelink interviews.
But as the number of people with psychological conditions on disability pensions increases, and the age profile of disability pensioners shifts, we will need to look at more fundamental ways to keep relatively young people with a disability off welfare and in the workforce.
For many people with mental illness, the disability pension as a one-way street with few requirements and little help to get back into the workforce is simply not good enough.
www.incise.org.au/2011-12-14/we-said-it-first-mental-illness-and-disability-pension-reform/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=we-said-it-first-mental-illness-and-disability-pension-reform