The Future Aged: New Projections of Australia’s Elderly Population

Objectives: To use new methodology to forecast mortality for use in projections of the elderly population of Australia and to compare them with official projections. Method: The Lee-Carter method is applied to data for Australian females and males for 1968–2000 to forecast mortality to 2031. These forecasts are used with standard population projection methods to produce projections of the elderly population. Results: By 2027, forecast life expectancy is 88.1 and 82.9 years for females and males, compared with official projections of 85.4 and 81.4 years. Over the period to 2031, the populations aged 65+ and 85+ are forecast to increase by factors of 2.3 and 3.4 respectively. Compared with official projections, the forecast elderly population is substantially larger and has higher old-age dependency ratios, higher proportions aged 85+ and lower sex ratios. Conclusion: Official projections underestimate the size of the future elderly population especially the female and oldest-old populations. This article will be published in the Australasian Journal on Ageing. THE FUTURE AGED: NEW PROJECTIONS OF AUSTRALIA’S ELDERLY POPULATION Heather Booth, Demography and Sociology Program, Australian National University Leonie Tickle, Division of Economic and Financial Studies, Macquarie University