Annually, the government here reports on whether it is “closing the gap” betwen indigenous and non indigenous Australians. A key measure is mortality, and the gap between indigenous and non indigenous mortality rates is widening, rather than narrowing.Continue Reading
At current rates, the Australian population will be fully vaccinated in June 2022, and death rates in Australia continue to be appreciably lower than previous years. Some updates on some analysis I’ve looked at previously.Continue Reading
In many countries, population mortality statistics have revealed a much worse Covid 19 epidemic than is being shown by the case and official death statistics. Australian statistics have not been released for 2020 until this week (with data up to the end of March). They suggest that it is possibleContinue Reading
Depending on how you measure it, Australia is generally in the top 5 countries in the world for life expectancy. And we continue to improve. But Australia shamefully has an enormous gap in life outcomes between indigenous and non indigenous people. And over the period that of these statistics, while both indigenous and non indigenous mortality has improved, the gap has widened, with standardised indigenous death rates going from 164% of non indigenous rates to 172% of non indigenous rates between 2003 and 2017. So we may be the lucky country, but we certainly aren’t lucky for everyone.Continue Reading
Late last year, there was a flurry of mainstream interest in mortality statistics – here is the New York Times reporting on a study by two economists (Ann Case and Angus Deaton) The paper: documents a marked increase in the all-cause mortality of middle-aged white non-Hispanic men and women in the United StatesContinue Reading
Every year, the ABS puts out an analysis of mortality statistics for the calendar year, imaginatively entitled Deaths. And most years I post a quick analysis. The most recent one is based on mortality statistics for the calendar year 2012. This year I’ve focused on mortality improvement, and what has beenContinue Reading
People continue to live longer and longer around the world (for an interesting discussion of how superannuation should respond, see Paul Keating on Cuffelinks), which is mostly good. But different parts of populations have quite different experiences of mortality improvement. The (UK) Institute of Actuaries publishes a regular longevity bulletin. TheContinue Reading
Mortality has been improving in Australia (and indeed most of the world) for a long time. As my dad found out recently, the life expectancy at birth for a boy born in Australia has improved from 63 when he was born, to 79.7 years now. But there is considerable debateContinue Reading
Some links that have caught my eye this week: With the focus on the economic crisis in Europe, the beginning of a demographic crisis has slipped under the radar as birth rates plummet, from the Economist. Alex Dunnin analyses the winners and losers from the Productivity Commission’s recommendations on MysuperContinue Reading
With the controversial Stronger Futures laws passing the Senate in the early hours this morning, it seems a good time to write about Aboriginal life expectancy. Aboriginal people have a much lower life expectancy than non Aboriginal people in Australia. At birth Aboriginal men can expect to live about 12Continue Reading