Dr Kim Kiely (Lead Investigator) and Professor Kaarin Anstey (Co-investigator)

Australians are living longer and expected to work for longer than ever before. It is critical that additional years of life are at least matched by the increase in the years lived in good health, and that gains in healthy ageing are experienced across all sectors of society. There is also a great need to balance older adults’ capacity and opportunity to work with societal pressures to delay retirement.

The objective of this three-year project is to better understand individual and societal determinants that underlie variation in healthy ageing. We will identify characteristics that are tied to the years that older adults are able to engage in productive activities and live independently in good health. To achieve this, advanced health expectancy estimation methods are being used to analyse newly available mortality records that have been linked to national longitudinal survey data. These analyses will produce new, refined, estimates for Australia of ​‘healthy life expectancy’ with ​‘working life expectancy’. We will examine how these differ across sociodemographic strata, change over time, and compare internationally.

The project is funded by an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project (DP190100459).