Australians born today are expected to live longer than Aussies born five years earlier, on average, according to the Australian Life Tables 2002-2007 (released by the Australian Government Actuary). The prospect of a longer life doesn’t see to apply however if you’re a woman in your eighties or nineties.
In what may be a statistical aberration, or perhaps a sign that life expectancies are set to peak for the first time since records started, a female aged 81 years or over, will live a shorter life than a female aged 81 years or over five years earlier (more on this later).
An extra year of life at birth, on average
For the rest of the population, life expectancies are still increasing. If a child is born today, at birth a girl’s life expectancy is 83.67 years (82.87 years, five years ago), and a boy’s
A jump of more than a year for boys (and nearly a year for girls) in a five-year period is significant but the most significant trend is the dramatic improvement in the life expectancies of Australians since such records began more than 120 years ago.
The steady increase in life expectancy at birth, from 47.2 years in the 1880s (for males) to 79 years in the latest life tables augurs well for future generations. A female born in the 1880s could expect to live (on average) until the age of 50.84 years. A girl born today can expect a life more than 30 years longer than the life experienced by her foremothers (see table below).
The most encouraging information that you can glean from the AGA Life Tables is that as you age, the chances of you living longer than your life expectancy at a younger age, increase every year. Even in the 1880s, a male who managed to reach 65 years, could expect to reach the age of 76.06 years – a massive jump of nearly 30 years from a boy born in the same era. A 65-year old woman in the 1880s could expect to reach 77.27 years (an extra 26 years from a girl born in the same era).
Men living much longer, and older women living shorter lives
According to the Australian Government Actuary (AGA), the gap between the life expectancy of females and males is narrowing. Men are catching up with women, and if a man is lucky enough to reach the age of 99, his life expectancy exceeds that of a female.
So, the key message from the statistics is: keep on keeping on, except, it seems, if you’re a woman in her eighties or nineties.
A disturbing shift in the life tables is that the life expectancy for women in their eighties and nineties has decreased. The shift is very slight – a matter of a few weeks, but is this significant deviation from the upward long-term trend a sign of things to come for older women, or is it simply a statistical blip?
For example, five years ago a woman aged 85 years could expect to live another 7.28 years, on average. Five years later, the average life expectancy of an 81-year old woman is 7.08 years – lower. This drop in life expectancy for women extends to all ages beyond the age of 80 (refer to the numbers bold text).
If older women are now living shorter lives, what is the reason for such a shift, and will this trend continue? I have asked the Australian Government Actuary’s office this question and you can find out what an AGA spokesman AGA had to say immediately after the table below.
| FEMALES: Life expectancy changes since 1880 | ||||||||
| Age | Life expectancy (remaining years) at age… | |||||||
| Life tables | 1880-1890 | 1920-22 | 1953-55 | 1970-72 | 1980-82 | 1990-92 | 2000-02 | 2005-07 |
| Age | ||||||||
| 0 | 50.84 | 63.31 | 72.75 | 74.49 | 78.27 | 80.39 | 82.87 | 83.67 |
| 20 | 43.43 | 50.03 | 55.06 | 56.35 | 59.40 | 61.22 | 63.50 | 64.25 |
| 30 | 36.13 | 41.48 | 45.43 | 46.67 | 49.67 | 51.48 | 53.72 | 54.44 |
| 50 | 22.06 | 24.90 | 27.03 | 28.10 | 30.70 | 32.32 | 34.51 | 35.17 |
| 55 | 18.64 | 20.95 | 22.81 | 23.82 | 26.27 | 27.78 | 29.91 | 30.53 |
| 65 | 12.27 | 13.60 | 15.02 | 15.90 | 18.00 | 19.26 | 21.15 | 21.62 |
| 81 | 4.95 | 5.26 | 5.89 | 6.45 | 7.50 | 8.31 | 9.38 | 9.37 |
| 85 | 3.90 | 4.06 | 4.52 | 5.03 | 5.74 | 6.40 | 7.28 | 7.08 |
| 90 | 2.98 | 2.91 | 3.24 | 3.73 | 4.11 | 4.59 | 5.33 | 4.91 |
Source: Compiled from Australian Life Tables, 2005-2007, Australian Government Actuary (www.aga.gov.au). Released 27 November 2009. Next update due in 2014.
Living to a ‘very old age’: a note from the AGA
I invited Bernau Hadyn, an Actuary from the Australian Government Actuary, to comment on the fact that average life expectancies have increased, except for women in their eighties and nineties. I asked him whether the life expectancy for older women had peaked, or whether it was merely a statistical blip.
He referred me to page 6 of the Australian Life Tables 2005-07 http://www.aga.gov.au/publications/life_tables_2005-07/downloads/Australian_Life_Tables_2005-07.pdf (which is page 12 in the PDF document), where the report explains the changes to the mortality rates since the 2000-02 Life Tables were released five years ago.
Note: The extract below is quite technical. The section mention in the paragraph above, and in the extract below, refers to mortality rates, which is the opposite of life expectancies rates. If there is an increase in mortality rates, then that really means average life expectancies have decreased. Conversely, if mortality rates have decreased, average life expectancies should have increased.
This is what Bernau Hadyn had to say:
Our published mortality rates have increased at older ages for both men and women since 2000-02, partly because of an error in the 2000-02 Tables, and partly because rates from age 94 onwards have genuinely increased.
We found some historical data which shows that, across most of the major developed countries, over the last 50 years or so, for very old ages, it has not been uncommon for mortality rates at very old ages (>90) to increase over time. We speculated in the document that the average health status of the very old group might be declining, as many lives are being prolonged through improved medicine.
One more issue which you may already understand is the issue of mortality improvement. The ‘life expectancy’ figures that we publish are based upon mortality rates relevant basically to the 2005-07 period; being the number of deaths in that period, divided by the population as at the 2006 census. So, we effectively have the rates of death which are occurring at this point in time.
Our ‘life expectancy’ estimates assume that these rates will continue into the future completely unchanged, that is, for a baby born in 2006, we assume that, at age zero, they have the probability of death within their first year as recorded in our Tables. Likewise, when they reach 20 in 2026, we assume their probability of death before they reach 21 will be the same as recorded in our Tables for people who were 20 in 2006. In reality, of course, mortality rates are likely to improve over the next 20 years, and so the 2006 newborn is likely to live longer than suggested by our standard ‘life expectancy’ figures.
Our cohort life expectancy estimates (p19) take mortality improvement into account, and are thus intended to genuinely estimate how long people will live, rather than our standard ‘life expectancy’ figures, which are more like a statistical summary of the mortality rates which occurred over the three-year period from 2005 to 2007.
For more information, you can refer to the Australian Life Tables 2005-07.
