Men’s life expectancy has dropped by half a year while women’s has fallen by three months since the Covid pandemic, new official figures show.
In 2021 to 2023, life expectancy at birth in England and Wales was 79.0 years for men and 83.0 years for women, Office for National Statistics (ONS) today revealed.
That’s 26 weeks lower for men and 13 weeks lower for a woman in comparison to data from 2017 to 2019 before the pandemic.
Despite life expectancy slowly increasing over the past 40 years, due to advances in healthcare, living and working conditions, life expectancy still remains lower than before the Covid pandemic.
Since 2011, life expectancy has started to plateau with experts also blaming increased death rates on the Covid pandemic, as well as soaring rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes.
In 2021 to 2023, life expectancy at birth in England and Wales was 79.0 years for men and 83.0 years for women, Office for National Statistics ( ONS ) today revealed
More than two years ago the government pledged to increase health life expectancy by five years by 2035.
However, latest data suggests England and Wales have failed to recover after the Covid pandemic.
In 2021 to 2023 life expectancy was lower for men (79.2 years) and one week lower for women (83.0 years), compared with 2018 to 2020 — that includes two years of mortality data before the pandemic.
But, compared with 2020 to 2022, the latest estimate of life expectancy is 13 weeks higher for males (78.8 years) and 11 weeks higher for females (82.8 years). During this time mortality rates were heavily impacted by the Covid pandemic.
Experts have suggested in addition to the Covid pandemic decline in quality of life could also be to blame. Data also covers the period in which Britain was plunged into a cost of living crisis, which experts warned increased the risk of malnourishment due to high food and energy prices.
These ONS figures, the latest available, cover average life expectancy meaning some people will live less and others far longer.
Since 2011 life expectancy has started to plateau with experts also blaming increased death rates on the Covid pandemic, as well as soaring rates of heart disease, cancer and diabetes (Source: ONS)
Previously charities have 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 in conditions including heart disease and diabetes that helped to stall further rises in life expectancy.
Referring to ONS figures released in January 2024, Veena Raleigh, senior fellow at The King’s Fund, said: ‘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 health care 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.’
How long you are expected to live also depend where you live in the UK.
There is about a year difference in life expectancy between England and Wales, with data showing life expectancy at birth in 2021 to 2023 to be 79.1 years for males and 83.0 years for females in England and 78.1 years for males and 82.0 years for females in Wales.
Data from ONS also shows women in the wealthy borough of Kensington and Chelsea in London enjoy the highest average life expectancy at age 65 in England at 88.3 years.
This was followed by those in the South Hams District of Devon (88.2 years) and Winchester in Hampshire (88 years).
Those aged 65 years were estimated to live a further 18.6 years for men and 21.1 years for women in 2021 to 2023 in England and Wales
Men in Hart in Hampshire had the highest life expectancy at 86.2 years, followed by those in South Cambridgeshire (85.51).
East Devon and Winchester came joint third at 85.46 years life expectancy.
In contrast men in Manchester had the lowest average life expectancy at just 80.8 years, about six years less than those in Hart.
This was followed by those in Barking and Dagenham in East London at 81 years, with Liverpool and Blackpool coming joint third lowest at just a fraction more at 81.04 years.
Women in Blaenau Gwent in southeast Wales had the lowest average life expectancy for those aged 65 at 82.8, again about six years less than those in the highest performing areas.
This was followed by women in Manchester (83.2 years) and those in Knowsley in Merseyside (83.3 years).
But the above data relates to adults currently in their 60s — and the picture is bleaker for children born today.
A boy born in Hart between 2020 and 2022 can expect to reach his 83rd birthday (83.7) and, while the highest recorded, is three years behind what a man who is 65 at the same time in that area is expected to live to.
Meanwhile, a boy born in Blackpool will likely only live to 73 (73.41), a gap of more than a decade compared to Hart.
The ONS estimates are based on a figure called period life expectancy.
This is a hypothetical measure that assumes the mortality rates recorded in an area between 2020 to 2022 applies throughout a person’s life.
It uses the death registrations in the period from 2020 to 2022 for each age group, the probability of death and numbers of people surviving in each group to come to this figure.
Life expectancy in older adults has also slowed over the last decade.
Those aged 65 years were estimated to live a further 18.6 years for men and 21.1 years for women in 2021 to 2023 in England and Wales.
That’s five weeks higher than in 2018 to 2020.
However, life expectancy at 65 years also remains below pre-pandemic levels of 18.8 years for men and 21.2 years for women in 2017 to 2019.
For those aged 90, life expectancy was 3.9 years for men and 4.6 years for women in 2021 to 2023.
Improvements in life expectancy at 90 years have been low for several years.
But, previous improvements in mortality over many decades and a historical peak in the number of births notably around 1920 to 1921 have resulted in more people reaching the very oldest ages in recent years, ONS explains.
