Individual and national financial impacts of informal caring for people with mental illness in Australia, projected to 2030

[摘要] Background Mental illness has a significant impact not only on patients, butalso on their carers’ capacity to work.AimsTo estimate the costs associated with lost labour force participation due to the provision of informal care for people withmental illness in Australia, such as income loss for carers andlost tax revenue and increased welfare payments for government, from 2015 to 2030.MethodThe output data of a microsimulation model Care&WorkMODwere analysed to project the financial costs of informal care forpeople with mental illness, from 2015 to 2030. Care&WorkMOD isa population-representative microsimulation model of theAustralian population aged between 15 and 64 years, built usingthe Australian Bureau of Statistics Surveys of Disability, Ageingand Carers data and the data from other population-representative microsimulation models.ResultsThe total annual national loss of income for all carers due tocaring for someone with mental illness was projected to risefrom AU$451 million (£219.6 million) in 2015 to AU$645 million(£314 million) in 2030 in real terms. For the government, the totalannual lost tax revenue was projected to rise from AU$121 million (£58.9 million) in 2015 to AU$170 million (£82.8 million) in2030 and welfare payments to increase from AU$170 million(£82.8 million) to AU$220 million (£107 million) in 2030.ConclusionsThe costs associated with lost labour force participation due tothe provision of informal care for people with mental illness areprojected to increase for both carers and government, with awidening income gap between informal carers and employednon-carers, putting carers at risk of increased inequality.

[学科分类] 计算机科学（综合）

[关键词] Carers;labour force participation;welfare payments;lost income;mental illness