
Customer Success Manager
Glenn takes a look at the recently released ABS death statistics for 2020 – and finds a cheerier tale than you may expect.
Deaths statistics are probably not most cheerful of datasets to look at but they are one of the key indicators that inform our demographics and our population totals. (The population will grow as long as there are more births than deaths, for instance, in the absence of migration.) Over the last year, the ABS has been releasing provisional mortality statistics for Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic, so we’ve sort of had a sneak preview. This week saw the annual publication of death counts – and it is largely a good news story.
Fewer deaths in 2020
While many countries recorded “excess mortality” due to COVID-19, Australia recorded a significant drop in the number of deaths. For the calendar year of 2020, 161,300 deaths were registered in Australia, down by over 8,000 from 2019 and consistent with prior years – despite a higher population and a global pandemic. The age-standardised death rate was 4.9 per 1,000 people (in a standard population), a big drop from 5.3 the year before. In a pandemic year, our death rate in Australia fell substantially. This is by far the lowest death rate ever recorded in Australia. We’re living longer and less likely to die from a variety of causes. (Exact life expectancy data will be out in November.) It’s worth just thinking about this one figure and letting it sink in.
The ABS have a chart from the page linked above, and I’ve reproduced it here without alteration. It tells the story over time very well.
It’s worth mentioning that males consistently have a higher death rate and lower life expectancy than females, and this has always been the case. However, the graph shows this gap narrowing substantially over the past 40 years.
Causes of death
The ABS has also released “Causes of Death” data for 2020. I won’t go into this in detail here – it’s not light reading – but I’ve pulled out a few key points about last year’s causes.
So generally, it would appear that the measures taken to keep Australia’s population safe from COVID-19 have also resulted in a significantly lower death rate from many other causes for 2020. And the rate of death long term continues to decline substantially – as I’ve said before – we live in one of the safest places in the world at the safest time in all of human history.
While this is “good news”, it’s still a grim topic. If you or anyone you know needs help:
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