The FT has reported that:
The life expectancy of a 65-year-old at the start of this year was around two months shorter, for both males and females, compared with 2016, according to data from the Continuous Mortality Investigation, a private company owned by the UK's Institute and Faculty of Actuaries.
That's worrying. That was not the news I wanted on the first day of the month in which I can apply for a Senior Citizen Railcard for the first time. I'd better stick to the diet, keep off the hard liquor and keep walking the dog, just in case.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
I dunno…your “job” looks to be in the higher range!!!
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/21/find-out-how-your-gender-and-job-will-affect-your-life-expectancy
I agree
But my concern is always more than personal
I had to laugh at Steven Plonker (sic: Pinker) recently banging on about how the world was apparently improving.
Like many of his kind, Pinker/Plonker has fallen for good old neo-lib globalisation snake oil orthodoxy.
He cites how new jobs in China and abroad are reducing poverty etc., and seems to use a very narrow description of war to justify thoughts about there being less of it. For example Yemen has been terribly under reported here in the UK. Something to do with the Saudis perhaps?
What seems apparent to me though is that we not seeing real aggregate wealth growth globally; it is that when companies move their production facilities to cheaper jurisdictions all they are doing is just moving it around.
When you move your production facilities abroad someone loses (the place where you are moving from) and someone else gains. This is not a decrease in poverty: it is just redistribution of it.
Just like the City of London that tends to move money around from one part of the population to a smaller number.
Plonker also seems to ignore the impact of austerity/State support on those places losing jobs to globalisation which – given his supposed intellectual superiority – is utterly unforgiveable.
As Jolyon hints in a post this morning surely the fact that we have an out of control Tory party running amok in the country bankrupting the state apparatus that serves the people has got to be a cause for concern and surely has something to do with the stats you have just mentioned.
Jolyon’s post is essential reading….
Danny Dorling has done lots of work on this eg
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n22/danny-dorling/short-cuts
also an excellent talk found on theconversation.com
‘Life expectancy in Britain has fallen so much that a million years of life could disappear by 2058 -why?’
Depressing stuff
It will be interesting to see the ONS figures, which I think are due out later this month. (These are done on a different basis as you know.)
And life expectancy improvements have slowed down a lot over recent years
Female life expectancy at 65
Year at 65 Δ per yr
2014-16 20.94
+ 0.053py (i.e. from 2010-12 to 2014-16)
2010-12 20.73
+ 0.174py (i.e. from 1997-99 to 2010-12)
1997-99 18.47
+ 0.092py (i.e. from 1980-82 to 1997-99)
1980-82 16.91
(from ONS I can’t find figure for before 1980)
Another, what should be surprising statistic:
Female life expectancy at birth improved by just 0.44yrs in the last 5 years (2009-11 to 2014-2016) i.e. 0.09 per year. Whilst in the preceding 29yrs it was improving at 0.19 per year (more than double the rate).
[76.8y in 1980-82 to 82.42y in 2009-11 to 82.86y in 2014-16].
So what research is the government commissioning to establish if this is an inevitable genetic trend or is caused by government policy?
The last is the ‘killer question. Pun intended
I suspect we need to look to Danny Dorling for answers
I personally think we have to accept we are finite
A slow down may have been inevitable
And maybe an increase forever is not even, ultimately desirable. I am coming to terms with the fact that I have to be in a hurry now
BUT finding out is still important
At the coal face that is social housing, suicides and attempted suicides amongst our tenants have gone up since Welfare Reform.
There has been another steady growth in rough sleeping (dangerous in winter, but people with addresses are known for not being able to register for other services such as health).
As have life changing occurrences such as evictions for arrears.
Our NHS has been unintentionally killing people it seems due to underfunding. It’s all plausible to me this lowering of life expectancy. And unacceptable.
Sickeningly, you hit the mail in the head
But don’t go to A&E with it
They already know
Richard, does this mean that you will be retiring?
I’m thinking of doing so
But not before I am 83
Richard,
Hang on for a few years at the chalk face and the national retirement age might well be 83!