Aging & Society: Eighth Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

Globally, it has long been acknowledged that farmers are growing older. Australia is no exception, with the median age of farmers now fifty-three (ABS, 2012). Farmers are more likely to continue working well beyond the age at which most other workers retire and this scenario is reflected in the latest demographic data showing that a quarter of all Australian farmers is aged over sixty-five (ABS, 2012; Polain et al., 2011). Australian agricultural policy continues to construct the family farming model as the cornerstone of Australian farming (Australian Government, 2015). Yet, Australian farmers are increasingly ageing on farm in two-person households and without a next generation to follow. The cohort of older farmers is also contending with unprecedented economic and environmental change. Despite Australia’s devastating millenium drought of 1997-2010 bringing issues of rural decline to the fore, there is little discussion among policymakers of the age profile of farmers. In this scenario, this paper explores the health of older Australian farming couples as they contemplate their future. This paper draws on constructionist narrative research conducted in the Australian New South Wales Southern Riverina. Place identity is used as the theoretical frame to explore the relationship between place and health in the context of farmer ageing. Findings have implications for contemporary social policy responses to issues of rural hardship, water, ageing in place, and farming women’s vulnerability in later life.