UK Life Expectancy Drops to 2010 Levels

After a period of slowing improvements, life expectancy across the UK has fallen to its lowest level in a decade for both men and women. This decrease is primarily owing to the impact of the Coronavirus pandemic, where excess deaths increased sharply in 2020 and 2021.

Noticeably, life expectancy for women has returned to its level seen in 2010-2012 but for men, the life expectancy is below its 2010-2012 level.

Source of Data: Office for National Statistics (ONS)

Although life expectancy figures have fallen, this does not necessarily mean that a baby born since the pandemic would live a shorter life. The average lifespan of a baby born today will be determined by changes in mortality across their whole lifetime. For example, the 2022 male life expectancy figure of 78.6 indicates that a baby born during 2022 would expect to live to age 78.6, providing the average age of death does not change over their lifetime. The average age of death decreased during the pandemic as a result of excess deaths, hence decreasing the overall life expectancy during that period.

According to data from the UN’s Population Prospects report, the UK is not alone in a decline in life expectancy. Life expectancy for men and women from across the world fell from 72.8 years in 2019, to 71 years in 2021, the first drop since 1959.

Life expectancy has recovered since the sharp fall in 2020, however, it’s not had the bounce-back that many may have anticipated once the worst of the pandemic was over. Experts blame ‘deeper problems with the health of the nation and the resilience of the health care system’, including soaring rates of heart disease, cancer, and diabetes. This statement is supported by the results of a study comparing post-2020 changes in life expectancy across 29 countries; specifically, the life expectancy across England and Wales only increased by 2.1 months, whereas France, Spain and Switzerland increased by 5, 7.6 and 7.7 months, respectively, over the same period.

In separate data published from the ONS, the agency said that whilst overall life expectancy has fallen, the number of people aged 100 or over in England and Wales hit a record high in 2022; there were 15,120 centenarians in 2022, more than double the figure in 2002. The ONS said that while improvements in life expectancy for nonagenarians (i.e. those aged 90-99 years) had been low for several years, reduced mortality over many decades and peak birth rates in 1920-21 had resulted in more people living to the oldest ages. This data reflects advances in healthcare and public health measures, however there are also concerns arising over the impact an ageing population could have on the public finances, for example, state pension spending, decrease in population proportion contributing to tax revenues, etc. Specifically for pension providers, an increase in the number of realised centenarians above expected levels may have resulted in losses due to longevity.

In the future, insurers will need to account for long-term impacts of the pandemic, e.g. a possible second wave, Long Covid, etc. Furthermore, current NHS concerns consolidated by the UK’s inability to bounce back from the life expectancy drop should be considered when managing and modelling future longevity. This is likely to be through reviewing and setting assumptions and/or enhancing existing longevity models to account for these long-term Covid induced dynamics.

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Further reading:

Fall in life expectancy for men and women in UK driven by impact of Covid pandemic (ITV)
UK life expectancy falls to lowest level in a decade (The Guardian)
UK life expectancy falls to 2010 levels (Financial Times)