The life expectancy of Australians has decreased slightly over the past year, due to a high number of COVID-19 deaths.
A boy born in Australia today can expect to live for 81.2 years and a girl 85.3 years, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
This represents a drop of 0.1 years for both genders between 2020 and 2022, the data shows, marking the first decrease in the life expectancy of Australians recorded since 1993-1995.
ABS head of demography Beidar Cho said a significant portion of the drop could be attributed to COVID-19 deaths.
“This is the first time that deaths across all three years of the COVID-19 pandemic have been used in calculating life expectancy,” Cho said.
“The first two years of the pandemic had the two lowest mortality rates on record from all causes, however in 2022 the number of deaths increased by 20,000, with close to 10,000 of these being due to COVID-19.”
Even with a relatively large increase in the number of deaths, the effect on life expectancy was small, the ABS said.
This is because more than half of the people who died in 2022 were aged 80 years and over.
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Despite the drop, Australia is still ranked third in the world for longevity, behind only Monaco and Japan.
Both of these countries also recorded a dip in life expectancy over the past year due to pandemic deaths.
Life expectancy is lowest for Australians living in the Northern Territory, at 76.2 years for males and 80.7 years for females.
The state and territory with the highest life expectancy is the Australian Capital Territory, where males born today can expect to live to 82.2 years and females to 86 years.
Life expectancy was highest for men living in the Sydney region of Baulkham Hills and the Hawkesbury at 85.6 years.
For women, it is those living in the North Sydney and Hornsby areas of the NSW capital who enjoy the longest life expectancy of 88.2 years.
