Life expectancy by Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), 2011-2024

Life expectancy for Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage deciles.

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Released
4/05/2026
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Life expectancy, 2022 - 2024
Released
04/05/2026 11:30am AEST

Introduction

By international standards, Australia has a high life expectancy. However, below the national level this varies across areas with different levels of relative socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage. These differences reflect underlying socioeconomic conditions such as income, education, employment and housing that influence people’s capacity to access resources, including health care.

The Index of Relative Socio‑economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD), one of the Socio‑Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), is used in this article to analyse life expectancy at birth by area-level socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage.

This article draws on research by Timonin, Adair, Welsh, and Canudas-Romo, published in 2025 in 'Socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy in Australia, 2013–22: an ecological study of trends and contributions of causes of death’, Lancet Public Health 2025, volume 10, e599-e608.

Life expectancy at birth estimates in this article are based on death registrations between 2011–13 and 2022–24. Some short-term mortality variations occurred due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019–21, 2020–22, 2021–23 and 2022–24. For further information see ‘Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic’ in the Methodology section.

As a result of using different data sources (death registrations not occurrences), there are slight variations in life expectancy estimates at the national level compared with Life expectancy, Australia. For further information on the methodology used in other ABS publications, see Life expectancy methodology. 

National

At the national level, life expectancy increased steadily from 2011–13 to 2019–21, with male life expectancy rising from 80.4 to 81.5 years and female life expectancy increasing from 84.5 to 85.5 years. National life expectancy reached the highest level on record for both males and females immediately prior to the COVID‑19 pandemic.

Life expectancy fell slightly from 2019–21, decreasing to 81.3 years for males and 85.1 years for females by 2022–24. Although small, these reductions in life expectancy are a break in the long‑term pattern of gradual improvement. The drop was larger for females (0.4 years) than males (0.2 years). These decreases in life expectancy are consistent with pandemic‑related factors.

Across the period, female life expectancy was consistently higher. The gap between the sexes narrowed slightly over time, from about 4.1 years in 2011–13 to around 3.8 years in 2022–24.

Further information on life expectancy at the national level can be found in Life expectancy, 2022 - 2024.

SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage

Males

Male life expectancy at birth increased over the period for all IRSAD deciles. However, there were substantial differences between areas of differing socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage. Males living in the most disadvantaged areas (Decile 1) had the lowest life expectancy in every period, while those living in the most advantaged areas (Decile 10) had the highest.

Between 2011–13 and 2022–24, male life expectancy in the most disadvantaged areas increased by around 0.2 years, from 77.3 years to 77.5 years. Over the same period, males in the most advantaged areas experienced an increase of around 1.0 year, from 83.5 years to 84.5 years. As a result, the absolute gap between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged areas widened slightly over time, from 6.2 years in 2011–13 to 7.0 years in 2022–24.

Although overall male life expectancy improved, gains were larger for those living in more advantaged areas. If this trend continues, then the gap in life expectancy between the most disadvantaged and the most advantaged will continue to widen.

Due to increased deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, male life expectancy declined across all IRSAD deciles from 2019–21 to 2022–24.

  1. Socioeconomic deciles are based on the ABS Index of Relative Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD).
  2. Registration delays between 2017 and 2019 produced short‑term fluctuations in recorded deaths, which are reflected as a brief rise and fall in life expectancy in some IRSAD deciles. For more information, see the Methodology section.

Females

Female life expectancy was higher than male life expectancy across each of the levels of socioeconomic advantage and disadvantage. As for males, females living in the most disadvantaged areas (Decile 1) had the lowest life expectancy in every period, while those living in the most advantaged areas (Decile 10) had the highest.

Female life expectancy increased progressively from the most disadvantaged to the most advantaged IRSAD deciles in every period. In the most disadvantaged areas (Decile 1), female life expectancy declined by 0.1 years over time, from 82.4 years in 2011–13 to 82.3 years in 2022–24. In contrast, life expectancy for females living in the most advantaged areas increased by 1.2 years from 86.5 years to 87.7 years over the same period. The gap in female life expectancy between the most advantaged and most disadvantaged areas widened, increasing from 4.2 years in 2011–13 to 5.4 years in 2022–24.

As was seen for males, female life expectancy improved overall, but the gains were larger in the most advantaged areas. If this pattern continues, the gap in life expectancy between the most disadvantaged and the most advantaged will continue to grow.

Increased mortality associated with the COVID‑19 pandemic led to declines in female life expectancy across almost all IRSAD deciles from 2019–21 to 2022–24.


 

  1. Socioeconomic deciles are based on the ABS Index of Relative Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD).
  2. Registration delays between 2017 and 2019 produced short‑term fluctuations in recorded deaths, which are reflected as a brief rise and fall in life expectancy in some IRSAD deciles. For more information, see the Methodology section.

International comparison

Between 2011–13 and 2022–24, Australia consistently ranked among the leading countries for life expectancy. Among countries Australia is commonly compared with, life expectancy was higher than in New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States of America (USA), and ranked second only to Japan across most of the period. During the COVID-19 pandemic, life expectancy declined in Canada, the UK and particularly the USA, widening the gap in life expectancy between Australia and these countries. New Zealand's life expectancy was less impacted, and the gap with Australia remained fairly constant over the period.

For males, Australia's overall life expectancy was close to that in Japan; however, males living in the upper IRSAD deciles (Deciles 6 and above) exceeded Japan's life expectancy. For females, overall life expectancy was lower than Japan's, which aligned more closely with life expectancy levels observed in the most advantaged areas (IRSAD Decile 10). For both males and females, life expectancy in New Zealand, Canada and the UK aligned with Australia's lower‑middle IRSAD deciles, while the USA consistently fell below the most disadvantaged groups.

For further information on international comparisons of life expectancy, see Life expectancy, 2022 - 2024.

Graph 3: Life expectancy at birth, IRSAD deciles and international comparison by sex, 2011–2013 to 2022–2024(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)

Trends in life expectancy at birth across socioeconomic deciles, by sex

The graphs compare the Australian life expectancy at birth with those for Japan, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. Data for Australia is presented as the IRSAD deciles with shading between Deciles 1 and 10 to highlight the range of life expectancy estimates. There are separate graphs for males and females. The graph data are provided in the collapsible section below, titled, 'Tables: Life expectancy at birth, IRSAD deciles and international comparison by sex, 2011–2013 to 2022–2024'.

  1. Socioeconomic deciles are based on the ABS Index of Relative Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD).
  2. ABS uses 3 years of deaths data to calculate life expectancy while the life expectancy for international countries are based on single year of deaths data. Comparisons are made using the mid-point of the 3-year time point.
  3. For both males and females, life expectancy is highest among those in the most advantaged socioeconomic group (Decile 10), and decreases progressively with each lower IRSAD decile, reaching its lowest in the most disadvantaged group (Decile 1).
  4. Registration delays between 2017 and 2019 produced short‑term fluctuations in recorded deaths, which are reflected as a brief rise and fall in life expectancy in some IRSAD deciles. For more information, see the Methodology section.
  5. Blue shading indicates the spread of life expectancy deciles in Australia.

Source of life expectancy data for international countries, see OECD, Life expectancy at birth.

Tables: Life expectancy at birth, IRSAD deciles and international comparison by sex, 2011–2013 to 2022–2024

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Abbreviations

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Glossary

Glossary

Methodology

Life expectancy estimates

Life expectancy refers to the average number of additional years that a person of a given age and sex would be expected to live if current age- and sex-specific death rates are experienced throughout their lifetime. Life expectancy at birth has been used in this article.

Life expectancy estimates are derived from life tables. To construct a life table, the likelihood of dying at each age \((q_x)\) is calculated from population, births and deaths data. From this likelihood, life expectancy is calculated \((e_x)\).

ABS life tables include the following data:

  • \(l_x\) - the number of persons surviving to exact age \(x\)
  • \(q_x\) - the proportion of persons dying between exact age \(x\) and exact age \(x+1\)
  • \(L_x\) - the number of person years lived within the age interval \(x\) to \(x+1\)
  • \(e_x\) - life expectancy at exact age \(x\).

\(L_x\) and \(l_x\) are standardised to a population of 100,000.

Data collection and processing

Each life table is based upon 3 years of births, deaths and Estimated Resident Population data. This reduces the effect of year-to-year statistical variation on mortality rates. Additionally, the Hodrick-Prescott filter (Hodrick and Prescott, 1997) is applied to \(q_x\) values to reduce variability at ages with low death counts.

Births and deaths registration data are used to calculate life expectancy by SEIFA. This is different to the national, state and territory life tables published by the ABS, which use occurrence data. Registration data are counted in the year that the record was registered, whereas occurrence data are counted in the year that the birth or death actually happened, regardless of whether the birth or death was registered in the same year or in following years. The geographic areas contributing to each SEIFA decile change over time and therefore require data that are complete at the end of each reference year. Registration data are best suited for this, as occurrence data may be updated for several years after the year in which the event occurred.

As a result of using different data sources, there are slight variations in life expectancy estimates at the national level compared with Life expectancy, Australia. For further information on the methodology used in other ABS publications, see Life expectancy methodology.

There were 2,812 death registrations from 2017, 2018 and 2019 identified during a joint investigation between the ABS and the Victorian Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages that had not previously been provided to the ABS. Of these deaths, 40.4% were registered in 2017, 57.0% in 2018 and 2.6% in 2019. The 2,812 Victorian deaths are in scope of the 2019 reference year and are therefore included in the death registrations for the 2019 reference year. Additionally, there were 1,864 deaths registered in Victoria between 2013 and 2016 that were not supplied to the ABS until the 2021 reference year. As these deaths occurred more than five years prior to the reference year, they are not considered to be representative of mortality in 2021 and therefore are excluded from the 2021 reference year counts.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic

Life expectancy at birth estimates in this article are based on deaths occurring between 2011 and 2024. Life tables including data from and after 2020 include short-term mortality variations due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The effect of COVID-19 on each year is as follows:

  • 2020: Australia recorded fewer than expected deaths. Public health measures put in place to restrict the spread of COVID-19 also resulted in a reduction of deaths across many other causes
  • 2021: The death rate increased but was below pre-pandemic levels
  • 2022: Australia's pattern of mortality differed to that of the first two years of the pandemic and the number of deaths increased by almost 20,000 deaths from 2021, with almost 10,000 of these being due to COVID-19
  • 2023: 5,001 deaths were registered that were due to COVID-19
  • 2024: Around 4,000 deaths were registered that were due to COVID-19. For all causes combined, total registered deaths decreased compared with 2022 but remain higher than pre-pandemic levels.

The SEIFA Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage

The Socio-economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA) is used by the ABS to rank areas by socio-economic status. The indexes are built from Census data on topics such as income, education, employment and housing. In this article the Index of Relative Socio-economic Advantage and Disadvantage (IRSAD) has been used. IRSAD is a measure of the relative advantage or disadvantage in an area.

Life tables have been prepared for each IRSAD decile. These deciles range from Decile 1, representing the most disadvantaged areas to Decile 10, representing the most advantaged areas. Each decile accounts for 10% of the areas given an IRSAD score, and approximately 10% of the national population. SEIFA indexes are available for multiple geographical units. In this article, SA2-based IRSAD has been used in categorising the usual resident population estimates and for the usual residence recorded on death records. More details on SEIFA and IRSAD can be found in Socio-Economic Indexes for Areas (SEIFA), Australia methodology, 2021.

New SEIFA indexes are produced after each Census. The data used in the article cover multiple Censuses, so multiple editions of IRSAD have been used. The IRSAD from the preceding Census has been used to assign births, deaths and population to each decile. For example, 2011 to 2015 data are allocated based upon the 2011 Census-based IRSAD index. This means that some life tables use two different indexes.