Could co-operatives fix rural Australia’s aged care crisis?

4 December 2025, IMPACT, Monash University

As regional aged care fractures, a new study suggests community-owned co-operatives offer a realistic route to restoring local care.

In rural and regional Australia, too many older residents are being uprooted from the communities they helped build, simply to access basic care.

Facilities are closing or scaling back, operators are withdrawing from thin markets, and families are left with no choice but to relocate ageing parents hundreds of kilometres away.

Now, a major national evaluation by Monash Business School’s Mutual Value Lab (MVL) has identified a practical alternative.

The research team, including Associate Professor Paul Thambar, Professor Matthew Hall and Dr Liyan Zhang from the Mutual Value Lab and Dr Sarah Adams (ANU), carried out a two-and-a-half-year independent assessment of the Care Together program.

Designed and delivered by the Business Council of Co-operatives and Mutuals (BCCM) and funded by the Australian government’s Department of Health, Ageing and Disability, the program shows how co-operative, community-owned models provide a workable blueprint for restoring social care in regions where conventional providers have repeatedly fallen short.

“Workforce shortages, small provider exits, and demographic pressures are pushing essential services to breaking point, and traditional market and charity-led models are struggling to remain viable,” Associate Professor Paul Thambar said.

“Our research demonstrates that the co-operative model could provide an alternative business model for social care services because it is structured to support these communities, delivering tangible benefits for residents.”