Responding to the ONS data which shows that there are more centenarians than a decade ago, David Sinclair, Chief Executive at the International Longevity Centre UK said:

“While the numbers have grown still only a tiny number of us are reaching 100. But we are living much longer than previous generations. Life expectancy continues to grow, so while most of us today are unlikely to live to 100, we can expect to live longer than our parents and grandparents. But how good might our longer lives be?”

“A decade ago, the House of Lords argued that we were woefully unprepared for ageing. Over the last ten years, we have made little or no progress. Pensioner poverty is likely to start to increase, health inequalities have increased, too many of us leave work far too young. The failure of successive Governments and businesses to plan for demographic change is a testament to short-term reactive policymaking and has contributed to workforce shortages, economic stagnation and a health and care system failing to meet our needs.”

“Similarly in 2014, the ILC reported on the “missing million” – people over 50 pushed out of their previous job because of redundancy, ill health or early retirement. And as we have reported today, nothing has changed; over a million are still missing from the workforce. We are not doing enough to ensure people have purpose, a key ingredient in living longer”

“If one in four girls born today is to live to 100 then we need a dramatic rethink of how we approach our health, education, and work across much longer lives.

Ends

Contact

ILC – Press@ilcuk.org.uk or +44 (0) 7736 124 096. Spokespeople are available on request.

Notes

Office for National Statistics (ONS) Centenarians living in England and Wales in 2021 Profile of centenarians living in England and Wales in 2021 (sex, marital status, living arrangements, health, disability and socio-economic attributes).

Centenarians living in England and Wales in 2021 – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)

ILC Longevity White Paper briefing

In the “Good job?” briefing published today, the second in the series of briefings being released as part of work to develop a new “Longevity White Paper”, supported by Aviva, the ILC highlights that the failure to act to support longer working lives means that millions of over 50s are being forced from their jobs due to circumstances beyond their control.

ILC Missing million report

In 2014, the ILC working with The Prince’s Initiative for Mature Enterprise (PRIME) and Business In The Community, published The missing million: illuminating the employment challenges of the over 50s. At that time of the 3.3 million economically inactive people aged 50-64, approximately 1 million people had been made ‘involuntarily workless’ – pushed out of their previous job as a result of ‘shocks’, a combination of redundancy, ill health or early retirement.

In 2023, the proportion of all people aged between 50 and the SPA who left work involuntarily was 9.54% (as a proportion of all people aged between 50 and the SPA). If we look at this as a proportion of all people in that age group who left their job, the proportion rises to 47.57%. So nearly half of all people aged between 50 and the SPA who left their job did so involuntarily.