Australia's Ageing Population
Assessing the trends in the ageing and mortality of Australia's population prior to the sharp increase in excess mortality in 2022.
Australia has an “ageing population”.
Australia has what’s known as an “ageing population” which refers to a rise in its median age (structural ageing) and an increase in the absolute size of the aged population (numerical ageing). The ageing population has resulted from a long-term trend of declining birth rates and increasing life expectancy.
The “Ageing Population” explanation
As pundits search for answers to explain Australia’s record excess mortality in 2022 (or deliberately ignore an obvious one), many have latched onto the “Ageing Population” explanation.
The ageing of the population, it is suggested, results in increased rates of diseases and “external events” which proportionally afflict aged people in greater numbers, such as cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, cancer, dementia or falls. The worsening health outcomes facing older people, it is alleged, have been exacerbated during the pandemic contributing to soaring mortality in aged Australians. As the population ages, it is presumed these effects lead to increased deaths beyond the “expected” level: in other words, “excess mortality”.
The “Ageing Population” explanation is not proferred as the sole explanation for Australia’s excess mortality in 2022, however, it is implied as the underlying cause of the carnage by the experts:
“[W]e have an ageing population in Australia, so generally we have an upward trajectory, which we've had for many years, in mortality counts. These numbers don't take that into account…[excess mortality numbers], as I say, don't take into account the age structure of the population.”1
And:
“Let me just make a general point. As you would be aware, the average age of the Australian population is rising, as is the population of Australia. The total number of deaths, all other things given, gradually rises through time because you have an older cohort. So the fact that there has been a slight increase in the number of deaths from one year to the next is exactly what you would expect.”2
The inadequacy of the “Ageing Population” explanation
But of course, the population has not “suddenly” aged.
Individual Australians continue to age at a rate of one year per year, and discussion of population ageing seems stuck in a “1980s timewarp” where we fear older Australians are as vulnerable as they have always been in the past.3
As it so happens, Australians have been getting healthier for a long period of time.
Health bureaucrats are surely aware of this, but it has not prevented them from trying to cloak alarming excess mortality figures in changing demographics:
From the above exchanges, we learn that Dr. Gould (First Assistant Secretary, Health Economics and Research Division) believes that excess mortality was not really as bad as some early estimates had suggested because many of these deaths should be expected because of the ageing population.
More concerning, however, is his suggestion “long-term impacts of COVID are likely to be a cause for [the excess mortality]”, implying that even the non-COVID deaths from 2022 are in some way connected with COVID in the aged population.
If Gould’s suggestion is accurate, it prompts the question: just how much severe illness leading to death have the vaccines actually reduced?
Though the soaring excess mortality in the 65 and over age-brackets of the Australian population in 2022 would seem to confirm the hypothesis that the ageing population has played a leading role in Australia’s excess mortality in 2022, this investigation will show that Australian mortality was improving in the period prior to 2022.
The investigation will show that not only is the “Ageing Population” explanation inadequate for explaining Australia’s excess mortality, but it also cannot explain the concerning excess mortality in cohorts aged 64 and under in Australia, which coincided with the expansion of the world’s largest clinical trial to most Australians from May 2021 onwards.
Methodology
We will analyse the trends in Australia’s changing demography using measures such as its median age and changes in total population. We will also examine trends in Australia’s mortality by examining changes in its life expectancy (at birth and at older ages), total mortality, standardised death rates (SDRs) and age-standardised death rates (ASDRs).
Data from Our World in Data, World Bank, United Nations, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) will be used for this analysis. Population trends will be examined over the longer-term (1950 to present) and the mortality trends over the shorter-term (2012-2021).
The Australian population
Median age:
The median age in Australia increased from 37.3 years in 2012 to 38 years in 2021. This represents an increase of 0.7 years over the 10 year period, marginally above the rate for other developed countries of the world, but not necessarily at a rate that could be considered “rapid” compared with nations like Japan, South Korea or Italy:
Total population:
Australia’s population has steadily increased in the ten year period from 2012-2021, driven largely by net overseas migration and not natural increase. In 2012 it was approximately 22.73 million, increasing to 25.69 million in 2021: an increase of roughly 13%:
It is presumed that a rise in the total population inevitably leads to an increase in total deaths simply because there are more individuals present who, over time, will experience the natural process of mortality:
“As always, it is important to note that predicted death numbers are increasing faster from demographic changes (ageing and population size) than they are reducing due to mortality improvement.”4
But Australian population increase has been, for quite some time, largely driven by net overseas migration, not natural increase. Therefore, it would be erroneous to assume that total population increase should contribute an equal or greater amount of total deaths.
Migration data from the ABS confirms that population increase is mostly comprising the below age 65 cohorts for the last decade, which would reduce the structural and numerical ageing of the population, which should mitigate expected increases in death numbers and rates each year:
Life expectancy at birth:
Life expectancy at birth has increased for both males and females in Australia in the decade prior to 2022. In 2012, life expectancy at birth was 80.6 years for males and 84.7 years for females. By 2021, this had increased to 81.3 years for males and 85.4 years for females. This represents a significant improvement in life expectancy over a relatively short period of time. Remarkably, Australia’s life expectancy even improved through the first two years of the pandemic, demonstrating Australia’s overall mortality improvement until its significant decline in 2022.
Life expectancy at age 65+:
Life expectancy for those aged 65+ offers a more direct measure of how well a society is supporting and promoting the health of its ageing citizens, compared with life expectancy at birth, and also shows the improving health of Australia’s aged population over time.
A consistent improvement in the life expectancy of individuals aged 65 and older is evident over several decades. The upward trajectory indicates that older adults in the country had been enjoying longer, healthier lives, until 2022:
Total mortality:
Total mortality is more varied year-to-year due to a combination of factors including changes in disease prevalence or external events impacting public health.
Despite some volatility in mortality each year, a general upward trend is evident in total mortality mostly consistent with the ageing population and total population increase. The uptick in mortality in 2021 is attributable to the surge in COVID-19 deaths and “unknown deaths”:
Mortality can spike in some years because the spread of diseases such as influenza (or in our recent case: COVID) is more pronounced in some years than others. For example, the increase in total mortality in 2017 and 2019 was largely driven by two of the most severe flu seasons on record resulting in approximately 800 deaths in each of these years.5 Equally, though, low mortality years do occur in the absence of these events too: in 2016, 2018 and 2020.
Despite the changes in the population in the last decade, mortality was similar in 2012, 2013, 2016, 2018 and 2020 suggesting that higher mortality, or its extent, should not be expected each year because of the ageing of the population.
We show this variability in mortality in the graph below. Mortality in one year is compared against the preceding year and the positive or negative difference is shown:
Whilst population increase and the ageing of the population has been largely consistent over the last decade, the mortality rate is not directly variable with the ageing of the population nor changes in total population:
Age-standardised death rate (ASDR):
The ASDR provides a further insight into Australia’s health, because it accounts for the ageing of the population to enable adjustments for the number of people dying in each age-bracket as a proportion of the number of people in that age-bracket. For the period 2012-2021, we observe a notable overall improvement in mortality across each of the senior age-brackets with a decline in the age-standardised death rates over time:
However, there were noticeable spikes in mortality in 2019, attributed to a severe flu season, and once more in 2021, coinciding with higher than expected mortality in 2021 driven by COVID-19 and “unknown deaths”.
Summary
The data reveals that Australian mortality was improving despite the ageing of the population, despite the increase in total population and even during the first two years of the COVID-19 pandemic, until its significant and abrupt reversal in 2022.
We have observed periods of low, equal and lesser mortality in Australia’s recent history despite the ageing of the population and the increase in the total population.
We conclude, therefore, that the excess mortality in 2022 is occurring for reasons other than Australia’s ageing population.
Looking ahead
Once the ABS publishes the “Causes of Death” release for the 2022 reference period later this month, we predict that the “Ageing Population” explanation will gain traction in the mainstream narrative as an explanation for the carnage is sought.
We predict that the ABS, ATAGI (Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation - Australia’s immunisation authority), the TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration - Australia’s drug regulator), Actuaries Digital6, reputable fact-checkers and all other experts will do all sorts of hand-waving to suggest it was anything other than the miracle vaccines that could be the reason for the even worse excess mortality than shown in the ABS Provisional Mortality releases.7
We further predict a significant increase in the number of “unknown deaths”, as discussed previously in this article.
We cannot rule out the role of COVID-19 vaccines in Australia’s excess mortality. Despite the assurances from ATAGI of only 14 confirmed COVID-19 vaccine deaths since the vaccination rollout commenced, we know that the TGA does not thoroughly investigate adverse events from vaccination. Therefore, we estimate that deaths from the COVID-19 vaccines are responsible for a much larger quantity of the 25,000+ excess deaths in 2022 than we are led to believe. The temporal association between monthly surges in Australia’s excess mortality in 2022 coinciding with the rollout of boosters to aged Australians in early 2022, and the “winter booster” in mid-2022, suggests the vaccines have played a significant role in the excess mortality.
We know that the Australian population has not suddenly aged. Rather, the majority of the population has been subjected to injections with a biotechnology therapeutic to treat a novel coronavirus. To comprehensively assess the impact of these vaccines on mortality, both direct and indirect, observational studies utilising all-cause mortality as a metric are our most valuable tool.
Therefore, in a year where Australia has experienced its worst mass casualty event since World War Two, the evidence should be clear: the ageing population is not a factor.
The Paradigm is shifting.
Commonwealth of Australia, “Community Affairs Legislation Committee - Senate Estimates 1 June 2023”, link here, p. 16
Commonwealth of Australia, “Senate Economics Legislation Committee - Estimates”, link here, page 25.
Quiggin, J., “The Intergenerational Report Tries to Scare Us about Ageing. It’s an Old Fear, and Wrong”, https://theconversation.com/the-intergenerational-report-tries-to-scare-us-about-ageing-its-an-old-fear-and-wrong-212003, accessed 21 September 2023.
Actuaries Digital, “COVID-19 Mortality Working Group: Confirmation of 20,000 excess Deaths for 2022 in Australia”, https://www.actuaries.digital/2023/04/06/covid-19-mortality-working-group-confirmation-of-20000-excess-deaths-for-2022-in-australia/, accessed 27 August 2023.
Remarkably, influenza deaths virtually disappeared in 2020 and 2021. The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reports that only 0.09% (2 deaths) of the 2,130 deaths coded as “Influenza and Pneumonia” were from influenza in 2021; and the particular influenza virus causing those two deaths was not identified. Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Provisional Mortality Statistics”, Reference period Jan 2020 - Dec 2021, link here, accessed 13 August 2023.
“A platform for actuaries to showcase their diverse talent and thought leadership to the profession and to those in the industries served by actuaries” [emphasis added]. Actuaries Digital are Australia’s excess mortality “experts” whose findings are often repeated without critical analysis in the legacy media. Their independence has been called into question by the whistleblowing lab mouse “Jikkyleaks” on Twitter https://twitter.com/Jikkyleaks/status/1683796758789521408
The Provisional Mortality Statistics are estimated to have included only 85% of the deaths occurring in 2022 as delayed death registrations and open (at the time of the Provisional Mortality Statistics releases) coroner cases were not concluded at the time of publishing. Data revisions will be made to the “Causes of Death” release in the years following its September 2023 release, suggesting that the final numbers for 2022 may not be known until at least a year or two later.