Life expectancy for people aged over 50 has started to fall, new research from the International Longevity Centre – UK (ILC) reveals.

The think tank finds that changes to the health and life expectancy of people over 50 will have a significant impact on the economy. The fall in healthy life expectancy will result in more people dropping out of work earlier than anticipated.

The analysis conducted by Professor Les Mayhew, Associate Director of Global Health ILC-UK and Professor of Statistics at Bayes Business School (formerly Cass), shows that:

• Life expectancy for fifty-year-olds is now 2.3 years less than it would have been had the long-established trend continued.
• Every year of lost life expectancy results in 2.6 years less spent in good health.
• A UK man dying at age 80 could expect to spend on average 64.5 years in good health, but if his life expectancy is only 78, he will spend less than 60 years in good health.

ILC point out that a fall in life expectancy is generally preceded by a period of ill health which can vary in length according to pre-existing health conditions, age and other factors.

Previous ILC analysis had suggested that demographic change will drive a 2.6 million shortfall of paid workers by 2030.

Professor Les Mayhew, ILC’s Associate Head of Global Research and Professor of Statistics at Bayes Business School said:

“There are more of us over 50 than ever before but more of our lives are being curtailed or blighted by ill health. This is bad news for us as individuals but also for the economy.”

“Avoidable ill health costs the UK hundreds of billions of pounds every year. An unhealthy lifestyle is strongly associated with avoidable disability and economic inactivity as well as leading to increased pressure on the NHS and dependence on social services.”

“However, further stagnation in positive life expectancy trends should not be inevitable.  We can get back on track with targeted support to help people make healthy choices and more investment in preventing ill health.”

David Sinclair, ILC’s Chief Executive said:

“Addressing the mid-life health crisis needs to be a priority for Government. 25 million of us are aged over 50 so a fall in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy will have a huge economic impact.

The health service is already struggling with the number of people waiting for treatment increasing from 2.5million in 2010 to 7.5million today.

We need to prioritise prevention and give more people access to occupational health, with services provided alongside jobcentre plus.

Our economy needs us to be healthy so the Government must use tax and regulation to encourage healthy behaviours.”

Ends

Media contacts

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

Notes

Analysis of the Human Mortality Database published by the International Longevity Centre (ILC), looks at the life expectancy of people age 50+, how much the economy is affected by stalling life expectancy and what needs to happen next.

The full presentation of how stalling life expectancy is impacting the UK economy can be seen here: How stalling life expectancy impacts the UK economy – ILCUK

To understand what has changed since 2010, we compare latest life expectancy data with what would have happened if the long-established trend had continued.

We then measured the difference between actual life expectancy and the trend from 2010 to 2020. The dotted black lines show the long-term trend in life expectancy of UK 50-year-olds. The thicker hatched lines show the deviation from trend in actual life expectancy from 2010.

The presentation of the findings can also be downloaded here: https://ilcuk.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/How-stalling-life-expectancy-impacts-the-UK-economy.pdf

This work informed the ILC’s Longevity White Paper, identifying the changes we need to make to grasp the opportunities of population ageing, and longer lives. The report One hundred not out: A route map for long lives sets out the challenges facing the UK’s ageing population and includes a mix of next-step solutions, bolder ideas, and international examples that we believe could work to tackle them. The report is broken down into 11 chapters, each of which relates to a certain challenge our increasing life span will pose for government, industries, our society and individuals.

The ideas and solutions included in each chapter are far from an exhaustive list. If anything, we want to build upon them. We aim for these to be a conversation starter and to encourage further debate, investment and action. While we hope there are some ideas that there is a general agreement with, we also hope that there are some that provoke debate.

You can download the full report here as well as a shorter ‘In brief’ document which is not meant as a traditional executive summary but is intended to give a flavour of a few of the ideas in the full document.

Sources

The Human Mortality Database (HMD) is the world´s leading scientific data resource on mortality in developed countries. Human Mortality Database

1. Mayhew, M. Chan, A. Cairns (2023 forthcoming) ‘Levelling up – the great health challenge’, Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance and ILCUK

Population estimates – Office for National Statistics (ons.gov.uk)