{"id":28263,"date":"2016-10-12T13:10:09","date_gmt":"2016-10-12T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/?p=28263"},"modified":"2026-01-22T13:50:05","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:50:05","slug":"australia-senior-citizens-club-memberships-ebbing-could-mean-increasing-isolation-for-the-elderly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/australia-senior-citizens-club-memberships-ebbing-could-mean-increasing-isolation-for-the-elderly\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia : Senior Citizens club memberships ebbing could mean increasing isolation for the elderly"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Australia, Senior Citizens clubs have had trouble renewing memberships, a phenomenon\u00a0likely to increase elderly isolation and thus adverse health effects.<!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-28275 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg\" alt=\"Loneliness among the elderly\" width=\"522\" height=\"336\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation-300x193.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation-600x386.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 522px) 100vw, 522px\" \/>Elderly Isolation, a potential health hazard ?<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8220;<em>Social isolation is equivalent to the health effects of smoking 15 cigarettes a day or consuming more than six alcoholic drinks daily.<\/em>\u00a0<em>It is more harmful than not exercising and twice as harmful as obesity&#8221;, <\/em>University of South Australia<em>\u00a0<\/em>Professor Andrew Beer, observed. Five years ago, he set out on a state-funded study of elderly isolation in Australia ; the study revealed that one out of five Australians aged 60 and more said felt\u00a0lonely or isolated in varying , degrees, compared to <a title=\"39% of people over 65 feel lonely in the United Kingdom \" href=\"http:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/39-of-people-over-65-feel-lonely-in-the-uk\/3124779\">39% of people aged 65 and more<\/a> in the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">&#8220;<em>A person who is older and has been socially isolated for a considerable period of time has a health impact of drinking six standard drinks a day or smoking more than 17 cigarettes a day, so that&#8217;s a huge impact in terms of their quality of life<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>In Australia, social isolation affects residents of both some of the largest urban centres and isolated, scarcely populated regions ; as in many cases, the middle ground seems like the way to go, with medium-size cities faring much better in terms of elderly integration in community life, according to another study by Andrew Beer,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/full\/10.1080\/21681376.2016.1144481\"><em>Regional variation in social isolation amongst older Australians.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: justify;\">The steep decline of Senior Citizens Club membership<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">An important medium of elderly socialisation is senior clubs, according to M. Beer :\u00a0&#8220;<em>I think a whole range of community organisations including Senior Citizens Clubs, churches and RSLs are fundamental to reducing the risk of social isolation amongst older people.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But those clubs are currently going through a steep decline, as emphasized by\u00a0Waikerie Senior Citizens Club president Ron Hill : &#8220;<em>We&#8217;re struggling for membership.\u00a0We&#8217;re all getting a bit older and unfortunately we&#8217;ve got more passing away than joining the club.<\/em>&#8220;<\/p>\n<p>One factor, according to him, is the time elders spend looking after their families : &#8220;<em>The population is getting older and they&#8217;re just not going out and socialising,\u00a0they&#8217;re staying home looking after the grandkids while the parents go to work.<\/em>&#8221; Summer holidays is one of the worst times of the year in terms of elderly isolation : with their families often going away on vacation, they are left with no opportunities for meaningful human interactions.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/in-japan-the-elderly-struggle-with-isolation-and-precarity\/3127588\">Read more :\u00a0In Japan, the elderly struggle with isolation and precarity<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Australia, Senior Citizens clubs have had trouble renewing memberships, a phenomenon\u00a0likely to increase elderly isolation and thus adverse health effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":28275,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,3352,110],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-society","category-etudes"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg",640,412,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation-300x193.jpg",300,193,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg",640,412,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg",640,412,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg",640,412,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Elderly-isolation.jpg",640,412,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"SilverEconomy","author_link":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/author\/enredac26\/"},"uagb_comment_info":1,"uagb_excerpt":"In Australia, Senior Citizens clubs have had trouble renewing memberships, a phenomenon\u00a0likely to increase elderly isolation and thus adverse health effects.","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48534,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28263\/revisions\/48534"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.silvereco.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}