Life expectancy is rising faster than expected

In some affluent areas of the country, people living to the age of 90 is expected to become the norm, as life expectancy is rising faster than first thought. It is thought that the new estimated age will be reached by 2030 and this will add more pressure on services related to pensions, health and social care, according to recent research, with the gap between the rich and poor continuing to widen.

Currently, men in Blackpool have the lowest life expectancy in the country, with people living in the City of London likely to live the longest. The former can expect to live to 75.2 years, while the latter are likely to live to 84.3 years on average. Women living in the City are also expected to live the longest, at 87.3 years, with one reason being that they are more likely to be able to afford to live independently at home with mobility aids such as stairlifts.

UK life expectancy is only just better than Japan in 2012

This means that there is currently an eight-year gap between those living in more and less affluent areas of the country, and is similar to the gap which exists between life expectancy differences in England and Wales as a whole, as well as Sri Lanka or Vietnam. The seven-year gap for women is as large as that between the UK and Malaysia or Nicaragua.

The blame is said to lie with poverty and austerity, due to the coalition government cutting public spending in a number of areas such as healthcare, which is preventing ageing adults from getting the correct care and assistance they need. It is thought that these policies will encourage inequality trends to continue, or even worsen in the future, as they effect children and those of working age.

However, the forecasts by the Office for National Statistics for 2030 have closed the gap between the sexes, which is said to be due to the fact that more women are now smoking. Road deaths and homicide deaths among young men have also dropped, which has contributed to these predictions.

Image Credit: J (Flickr.com)