We are living longer, and that’s a good thing

By Leith van Onselen

I devote a lot of space warning about the economic headwinds from an aging population, and how the ongoing decline in the employment-to-population ratio and rising dependency rates will weigh on economic growth, national income, and leave ongoing budget deficits.

What I often don’t write about is the positives from an aging population: the fact that most of us can expect to live longer and healthier lives than was the case in generations past. While having a larger proportion of elderly Australians will certainly impose greater costs on the economy, I bet most readers would happily trade-off living longer in exchange for paying higher taxes, other things equal.

Today, the ABS released the highest life expectancy estimates ever recorded in Australia, courtesy of record low death rates:

Director of Demography, Bjorn Jarvis, said “A boy born today could expect to live 79.9 years, while a girl could expect to live 84.3 years. For those approaching retirement age, say 65 years, males could expect to live a further 19 years and females a further 22 years”.

“Australia’s life expectancy at birth continues to be amongst the highest in the world. The combined male and female figure of 82.0 years, while a little lower than Japan and Hong Kong, is higher than Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the USA,” said Mr Jarvis.

The Australian Capital Territory had the highest life expectancy at birth with 81.2 years for males and 85.1 years for females. The lowest life expectancy was in the Northern Territory, at 74.7 years for males and 80.0 years for females.

While there were 147,098 deaths registered in Australia, the standardised death rate fell to 5.5 deaths per 1,000 people, the lowest rate ever recorded in Australia. In 2002, the death rate was 6.8 deaths. This decrease over the last ten years was greater for males (around 2 deaths per 1,000 males) than for females (around 1 death per 1,000 females).

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