Sydney’s rapidly ageing population will be disproportionately concentrated in Northern Sydney, the eastern suburbs, the north-west and the Blue Mountains, which experts have warned will put intense pressure on the aged care system and leave an estimated 60,000 without adequate support by 2041.

For every 100 working aged people today, there are 29 people over the age of 65. But Sydney is experiencing a “silver tsunami” and a declining birthrate, which means this ratio could increase to 42 per 100 people by 2070, according to a report by independent think tank Committee for Sydney.

Almost one in three Mosman and Blue Mountains residents will be over the age of 65 by 2041. The Northern Beaches, Ku-ring-gai, and Hornsby local government areas will similarly have older Sydneysiders making up large proportions of the population, at 26.6 per cent, 24.2 per cent, and 23.5 per cent respectively.

As regions of Sydney age faster than others, this means the city’s east and north will face the highest demand for aged care services, while the south and west will continue to provide much of the workforce, which risks widening disparities and placing significant strain on broader health infrastructure and services.

The aged care system is already under pressure. NSW taxpayers are spending an estimated $1.2 million a day on hospital patients awaiting discharge to aged and disability care, and up to one in five bed days in one local health district were occupied by aged care residents due to an estimated shortage of more than 1000 residential care places.

Bay Warburton, executive director of community services at Wesley Mission, said the organisation had to stop providing home care packages because it couldn’t find staff to meet the demand.

“We say [to the elderly] we can’t take you on because we can’t provide the level of service we’d like to,” Warburton said. “We just don’t have the workers, and we have to wait until the workforce grows, or we can find those people who are willing to take on the hard shifts,” Warburton said.

A mismatch between where care workers live and where care is needed is largely driven by the lack of housing affordability in dearer regions such as northern Sydney and the eastern suburbs, which prevents carers from living close to where they work.

Chatswood local and avid cyclist John Kelman runs the nonprofit Cycling Without Age, and said demand to enrol in the program, which takes elderly people from aged care homes on trishaw rides across the city, has surged.

“Northern Sydney is getting older and the demand for care services is certainly increasing,” he said.

Beyond increased demand for aged-care adjacent services such as the one he operates, Kelman, while cycling on his usual routes, has also noticed more aged care homes being built, which he said has “increased notably over the years”.

Estelle Grech, policy manager at the Committee for Sydney has called for a citywide affordable housing strategy to alleviate some of the demand for services.

“We are having problems today – but if we don’t do anything about it, anyone who’s in their 60s right now and lives in these suburbs will have issues when they need aged care later,” she said.

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