On average, Australians are living longer than ever before. Life expectancy has been steadily increasing, and this is matched by increases in the proportion of deaths that occur at older ages and in the median age at death. However, the oldest age at death (often referred to as maximum age at death) has fluctuated from year to year and shown minimal increases over time.

While improvements in life expectancy are resulting in an ageing population and growth in the population of centenarians, few Australians die at ages higher than 110. This suggests that mortality is being compressed into older ages and may be slowly converging towards a maximum age at death rather than a situation where maximum life span is increasing along with average life expectancy. There is ongoing debate on whether there is a biological limit to the human life span. In Australia, the oldest living person is believed to have died at age 114.