{"id":98833,"date":"2025-08-27T04:47:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T04:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/98833\/"},"modified":"2025-08-27T04:47:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-27T04:47:08","slug":"could-you-live-comfortably-into-your-90s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/98833\/","title":{"rendered":"Could you live comfortably into your 90s?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The number of Australians aged 90 and over is expected to explode by more than 250 per cent in just 30 years. The question is, how can we afford to live this long?<\/p>\n

Australian women can expect to live 85.1 years, while men have an average life expectancy of 81.1 years, according to latest ABS figures<\/a>. \u201cAround 30 years ago [1993], life expectancy at birth was 75.0 years for males and 80.9 years for females,\u201d it notes. An ageing population means more of us will live into our 90s and even beyond.<\/p>\n

\"Singles<\/p>\n

Singles lose out on economies of scale; for women, this is particularly problematic.Credit: Janie Barrett<\/p>\n

The ABS population pyramid<\/a> suggests there are 47,122 Australians aged 90, plus tens of thousands more above that. (Interestingly, the table does not include figures for 100 years and over). That is up from just 19,579 nonagenarians 25 years ago, in the year 2000. In another 30 years, the number of 90-year-olds is estimated at 165,637 in 2055 \u2013 up 252 per cent.<\/p>\n

Living longer costs more<\/p>\n

The fact we\u2019re living longer is wonderful news, but problems arise when we don\u2019t have enough in savings to cover those extra years. Estimates for a comfortable lifestyle in retirement<\/a> suggest singles need $1003 a week, while couples require $1415. Where does this money come from if your superannuation runs dry?<\/p>\n

The age pension is roughly half this amount \u2013 including maximum pension and energy supplements \u2013 at $1149 for singles and $1732.20 for couples per fortnight ($574.50 and $866.10 per week). Furthermore, the recent cost-of-living crisis demonstrated such estimates can be woefully inadequate. Anyone who hadn\u2019t budgeted for this surge is draining their super much faster than planned.<\/p>\n

If you are able to (and want to), consider deferring retirement and keep working several more years.<\/p>\n

Add to this the differences in how we age. Women statistically live four years longer than men. There are discrepancies between spouses in age, health and genetics. The death of one partner does nothing to stop the other\u2019s living expenses. In fact, they generate funeral and other costs which, combined with any healthcare\/palliative care expenses beforehand, can substantially erode joint savings.<\/p>\n

Plus, singles lose out on economies of scale (living costs aren\u2019t double for two people compared with one). For women, this is particularly problematic, since the gender pay, superannuation gap, career choice gap and caring gap means they are paying for more years of life with less resources.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The number of Australians aged 90 and over is expected to explode by more than 250 per cent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":98834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,63,99,186,184,185],"class_list":{"0":"post-98833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-finance","12":"tag-personal-finance","13":"tag-personalfinance"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}