The
study introduces a new way of measuring life expectancy, accounting for the
historical mortality conditions that today's older generations lived through.
By
this measure, Australian men, on average, live to 74.1.
The
news is good for Australian women too; the study shows they're ranked second,
behind their Swiss counterparts.
Dr
Collin Payne co-led the study, which used data from 15 countries across Europe,
North America and Asia with high life expectancies.
"Popular belief has it that Japan and the Nordic countries are doing really well
in terms of health, wellbeing, and longevity. But Australia is right there," Dr
Payne said.
"The
results have a lot to do with long term stability and the fact Australia's had a
high standard of living for a really, really long time. Simple things like
having enough to eat, and not seeing a lot of major conflict play a part."
Dr
Payne's study grouped people by year of birth, separating 'early' deaths from
'late' deaths, to come up with the age at which someone can be considered an
'above-average' survivor.
"Most
measures of life expectancy are just based on mortality rates at a given time,"
Dr Payne said.
"It's
basically saying if you took a hypothetical group of people and put them through
the mortality rates that a country experienced in 2018, for example, they would
live to an average age of 80.
"But
that doesn't tell you anything about the life courses of people, as they've
lived through to old age.
"Our
measure takes the life course into account, including mortality rates from 50,
60, or 70 years ago.
"What
matters is we're comparing a group of people who were born in the same year, and
so have experienced similar conditions throughout their life."
Dr
Payne says this method allows us to clearly see whether someone is reaching
their cohort's life expectancy.
"For
example, any Australian man who's above age 74 we know with 100 per cent
certainty has outlived half of his cohort - he's an above average survivor
compared to his peers born in the same year," he said.
"And
those figures are higher here than anywhere else that we've measured life
expectancy.
"On
the other hand, any man who's died before age 74 is not living up to their
cohort's life expectancy."
Dr
Payne says there are a number of factors which might've contributed to Australia
jumping ahead in these new rankings.
"Mortality was really high in Japan in the 30s, 40s and 50s. In Australia,
mortality was really low during that time," Dr Payne said.
"French males, for example, drop out because a lot of them died during WW2, some
from direct conflict, others from childhood conditions."
Dr
Payne is now hoping to get enough data to look at how rankings have changed over
the last 30 or 40 years.
The
research has been published in the journal Population Studies.
Via Eurekalert