On October 1st, Australia marked its very first Ageism Awareness Day, to coincide with the International Day of Older Persons.

The findings of the How Age Friendly is the Territory? 2022 Survey by COTA NT will be available early in 2023.

At the same time new research by EveryAGECounts showed that nearly half of all Australians over-50 experienced ageism in the past year, but only one in five of them took any action in response, findings of the research include:

• 45 per cent of Australians over 50 say they have experienced ageism in the past year, and 52 per cent of all Australians say they have witnessed ageism in the past year
• 82 per cent of older Australians who experienced ageism say they did not take any action in response.

Of these:

• 27 per cent said it was because it was hard to prove
• 24 per cent said it was because they didn’t know how to respond
• 22 per cent said was because they were not sure if it was really ageism
• 9 per cent said they “didn’t know what my options were”

Ageism Awareness Day was launched in October 2022 (view launch here).