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Kim Xu, The Australian National University
Collin Payne, Australian National University
Rising longevity in Australia and other high-income countries is undoubtedly a considerable achievement. Within Australia, people alive today can expect to live nearly a decade longer than the average person in their parents’ generation, and two decades longer than the average person in their grandparents’ generation. However, the current evidence-base on healthy longevity amongst older Australians is insufficient to meaningfully inform decisions. We investigate social disparities in healthy longevity in Australia by generating microsimulation-based multistate life tables based on longitudinal data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) study. We find that substantial disparities in both total life expectancy (LE) and LE with long-term limiting illnesses exist by level of attained schooling. However, the magnitude of these disparities differs substantially by sex—the gap between the most advantaged and least advantaged groups is twice as large among men as among women. This finding is in sharp contrast to results from other high-income contexts such as the US. Combined, these analyses represent a substantial step forward in understanding social inequalities in health within Australian society, and present new and intriguing evidence on how the sex gap in healthy longevity may differ across contexts.
Keywords: Population ageing, Health and morbidity, Mortality, Inequality