A decades-defying slump in life expectancy for Australians has continued for a second year straight, with a peak in COVID-19 deaths driving a greater decline among women.

Data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) showed the life expectancy for women had fallen by 0.2 years between 2021 and 2023, compared with a drop of 0.1 years for men.

Australian women continue to outlive men, with a female born today expected to live 85.1 years and a male 81.1 years.

An Australian celebrating their 60th birthday today can expect to live longer, whether a man (84.2 years) or a woman (27.1 years).

Those numbers reflect having survived the first several decades of life.

ABS head of demography Beidar Cho said the overall drop in life expectancy was due to COVID-19 deaths spiking at 15,982, a rise of 4,100 from 2020 to 2022.

Australia’s death rate increased in 2021 but was still lower than before the pandemic.

In 2022, the number of deaths jumped by almost 20,000, almost half of those attributed to COVID-19.

Last year, the number of COVID-19 deaths almost halved to 5,001.

The pandemic-era decline followed decades of Australians living longer.

“Despite this decrease, Australians still have a higher life expectancy than many comparable countries, like New Zealand, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Canada,” Ms Cho said.

The latest comparable data from overseas showed only Japanese (84.1 years), Swiss (83.7 years) and Koreans (83.6 years) lived longer than Australians, who shared the same life expectancy as Spaniards (83.2).

Sweden, Luxembourg, Israel, Italy and Ireland rounded out the top 10.

Within Australia, the ABS found life expectancy at birth was generally higher in capital cities than in remote areas.

Suburbs in Sydney boasted the highest expectancy, with males living in Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury expected to reach 85.5 years, and females in North Sydney and Hornsby 88.2 years.

The lowest expected ages for both males and females were in outback Northern Territory (71.9 years and 75.5 years respectively).

By state or territory, the Australian Capital Territory had the highest life expectancy for both males (81.7 years) and females (85.7 years) — sharing the latter with Western Australia.

The whole of the Northern Territory also had the lowest expectancy for both men (76.4 years) and women (80.4 years), it showed the largest rise for both over the decade to 2023 (1.5 years and 1.2 years).

The Northern Territory was the only state or territory where male life expectancy increased between 2021 and 2023 (0.2 years).