Mortality in Australia and the Rest of the World in 2024

The “new normal” level of mortality is likely to be higher in the short-term than it would have been in the absence of a pandemic, according to the Actuaries Institute Mortality Subcommittee’s 2025 Report ‘Mortality in Australia and the Rest of the World in 2024’.

Other key findings from the analysis detailed in the Report include:

• There were around 700 (0.4%) more deaths in Australia in 2024 than predicted, against a new baseline that allows for COVID-starting to become an endemic cause of death in the Australian population. This overall excess is not considered to be statistically significant.
• When compared to a straight 2015-2019 trend, 2024 mortality was around 6% higher, similar to 2023.
• COVID-19 is expected to remain a persistent and significant contributor to overall mortality for some years to come, directly as a cause of death and less directly, as a contributor to other causes, such as heart disease.
• Despite high excess mortality since borders opened in 2022, Australian excess mortality over the five years (6%) was towards the low end of the 40 countries considered in the analysis – at 26th out of 40.
• Mortality rates in Australia are likely to resume improving year on year in line with trend observed before the pandemic. The underlying drivers of mortality improvement, such as medical advances, reduction in smoking rates, and other societal improvements, are continuing (noting that improvements in many causes of death are “baked in” from population-wide changes years, or even decades, beforehand).

Authored by the Mortality Subcommittee, whose 2025 membership consists of: Jenny Gibson, Cecilia Huang, Jenny Ingram, Ronald Lai, Jennifer Lang, Richard Lyon, Matt Ralph, Michael Seymour, Amitoze Singh and Colin Yellowlees.