What is the average life expectancy in Australia?
According to the latest figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), Australian life expectancy hit a new record high in 2015, with babies born in 2015 expected to live to 80.4 years if they are male and 84.5 years if they are female.
“Babies born today have the highest estimated life expectancy ever recorded in Australia,” said Beidar Cho, ABS Director of Demography.
“In 2015, the male and female combined life expectancy at birth estimate for Australia was 82.4 years.”
Looking for a life insurance policy? Check out our table below which features a snapshot of the current life insurance policies available to the market, with links direct to the providers websites. Please note that this table has been formulated based on a 40 to 49 year old non-smoking male who works in a professional occupation, and is sorted by star rating (highest – lowest).
This is 11.9 years higher than the world average of 70.5 years.
For members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander populations, life expectancy is roughly a decade lower than that of the non-Indigenous population, being 69.1 for males and 73.7 for females.
Wanting to increase your life expectancy odds? According to the ABS, children born in the ACT have the highest life expectancy of all, at 85.3 years for girls and 81.2 years for boys, while children born in the Norther Territory have the lowest life expectancy, at 78.5 years for girls and 75.7 years for boys.
For every 1,000 Australians, 78 males and 45 females will die between the ages of 15 and 60 years without reaching the current potential life expectancy at birth figure.
It’s definitely worth noting, though, that Australia has the third best life expectancy in the world, second only to Japan and Andorra, which have 80/87 and 79/86 respectively. Our third-place rank definitely says a lot about the quality of life in Australia!
Life insurance at different stages of life
Life expectancy in other countries
Life expectancy obviously varies by country, but according to the World Health Organisation statistics, many first world countries have similar life expectancies to that of Australia. The USA expects 76 years for males and 81 years for females, the UK expects 79 years for males and 83 years for females, and New Zealand expects 80 years and 84 years respectively.
Meanwhile, China’s life expectancy is 74 for males and 77 for females; and in Russia, life expectancy is just 63 years for males and 75 years for females.
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Factors that affect life expectancy
Your own personal life expectancy is affected by a number of things, primarily when you were born, and what gender you are. However your race, medical conditions, and family medical history all play a factor in your life expectancy. There are many easy online calculators to help you work out your own potential life expectancy.
Along with those factors, your life expectancy is also affected by your socioeconomic status, employment, education, and any substance addictions or habits you may have. It’s a bit of a no-brainer, but if you hadn’t already realised, smoking and/or excessive drinking will definitely dent your life expectancy!
And don’t forget diet! The 2016 CSIRO Healthy Diet Score report, which monitors the dietary habits of more than 86,500 adults across the country over a 12 month period, gave Aussies a score of just 59 out of 100 earlier this year.
According to the 2016 Healthy Diet Score, 80% of respondents received an individual score below the benchmark figure of 70. Read more about the nation’s diet scores here.
“If we can raise our collective score by just over 10 points, we help Australia mitigate against the growing rates of obesity and lifestyle diseases such as heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and a third of all cancers,” said CSIRO Research Director and co-author of the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet, Professor Manny Noakes at the time.
The ways you can buy life insurance
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