Australia - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in Australia was 85.30 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 85.30 in 2020 and a minimum value of 74.00 in 1960.

Definition: Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.

Source: (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also:

Year Value
1960 74.00
1961 74.20
1962 74.20
1963 74.20
1964 74.20
1965 74.20
1966 74.20
1967 74.26
1968 74.32
1969 74.38
1970 74.44
1971 74.50
1972 74.92
1973 75.34
1974 75.76
1975 76.18
1976 76.60
1977 76.94
1978 77.28
1979 77.62
1980 77.96
1981 78.30
1982 78.48
1983 78.66
1984 78.84
1985 79.02
1986 79.20
1987 79.44
1988 79.68
1989 79.92
1990 80.16
1991 80.40
1992 80.40
1993 80.90
1994 80.90
1995 80.80
1996 81.10
1997 81.40
1998 81.50
1999 81.80
2000 82.00
2001 82.40
2002 82.60
2003 82.80
2004 83.00
2005 83.30
2006 83.50
2007 83.70
2008 83.70
2009 83.90
2010 84.00
2011 84.20
2012 84.30
2013 84.30
2014 84.40
2015 84.50
2016 84.60
2017 84.60
2018 84.90
2019 85.00
2020 85.30

Development Relevance: Mortality rates for different age groups (infants, children, and adults) and overall mortality indicators (life expectancy at birth or survival to a given age) are important indicators of health status in a country. Because data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. And they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries.

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Life expectancy at birth used here is the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if mortality patterns at the time of its birth remain constant in the future. It reflects the overall mortality level of a population, and summarizes the mortality pattern that prevails across all age groups in a given year. It is calculated in a period life table which provides a snapshot of a population's mortality pattern at a given time. It therefore does not reflect the mortality pattern that a person actually experiences during his/her life, which can be calculated in a cohort life table. High mortality in young age groups significantly lowers the life expectancy at birth. But if a person survives his/her childhood of high mortality, he/she may live much longer. For example, in a population with a life expectancy at birth of 50, there may be few people dying at age 50. The life expectancy at birth may be low due to the high childhood mortality so that once a person survives his/her childhood, he/she may live much longer than 50 years.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Health Indicators

Sub-Topic: Mortality