Covid reversed a decade of progress in life expectancy, official figures show. Boys born between 2020 and 2022 are expected to live for just 78 years and seven months, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). It marks a nine-month drop on 79 years and four months boys born in 2017-2019 were expected to live. Meanwhile, life expectancy for girls born in 2020-22 dropped by five months, from around 83 years pre-pandemic to 82 years and seven months.
Experts blamed increased death rates during the pandemic, as well as ‘deeper problems with the health of the nation,’ including soaring rates of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. While life expectancy has risen slowly over the past decade, the effect of the Covid pandemic saw increased mortality.
Separate ONS statistics also revealed that there are more people living to see their 100th birthday in England and Wales than ever before, with the figure soaring above 15,000 in 2022.
Charities warned that while life expectancy figures had recovered slightly since the sharp fall in 2020, the bounce back in the aftermath of the pandemic had not been as strong as anticipated. They pointed to the prevalence of conditions including heart disease and diabetes that helped to stall further rises in life expectancy.
Veena Raleigh, senior fellow at The King’s Fund, said: ‘Today’s data from the ONS lays bare the impact that the pandemic has had on life expectancy in the UK. Although life expectancy has recovered somewhat since the sharp fall in 2020 when the pandemic struck, it’s not had the bounce back that might have been expected once the worst of the pandemic was over, pointing to deeper problems with the health of the nation and the resilience of the healthcare system. Much of the heavy burden of sickness and death in the UK is caused by preventable conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, and diabetes.’
Pamela Cobb, joint lead of the Demographic Analysis Unit at the ONS, said: ‘After a decade of slowing life expectancy improvements, we’ve now seen life expectancy fall for both men and women. This decrease has been mainly driven by the coronavirus pandemic, which led to increased mortality in 2020 and 2021. However, a fall in life expectancy does not mean that a baby born in 2020 to 2022 will go on to live a shorter life. The average lifespan of a baby born today will be determined by changes in mortality across their lifetime. If mortality rates improve, then life expectancy will go back up.’
Meanwhile, the baby boom in the aftermath of the First World War has seen the number of centenarians more than double in the past two decades. There were more than 15,120 centenarians living in England and Wales in 2022, up from just under 7,000 in 2002. The rise in those over the age of 100 was accounted for in part by the large post–World War cohort aged 102 or over, who accounted for 17 percent of centenarians overall.
And while it is commonly held that women live longer than men, the data showed that the gap between the genders had halved over the past two decades. In 2002, there were more than eight women to every man over the age of 100, a number that had nearly halved by 2022.
The number of people aged over 90 rose to its highest-ever total, too, with more than half a million (550,835) in England and Wales in 2022. England accounted for the majority of those over the age of 100, with 5,970 people over the age of 100 and 2,430 over the age of 102. In Wales, there were 350 centenarians and 140 people over the age of 102.
An ONS spokesman said: ‘The number of centenarians in England and Wales continues to grow, with a doubling in numbers over the last two decades. Despite this growth, centenarians still only account for 0.03 percent of the total population. Although most centenarians are women, the number of men reaching the oldest ages has increased, with men accounting for nearly 1 in 5 of centenarians in 2022, compared with around 1 in 10 two decades earlier in 2002.’
