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Report on state pension age and life expectancy for Midlands TUC

Report type
Research and reports
Issue date

At present (October 2015) the age at which you become entitled to the state pension is 65 for men and 62 years and 8 months for women.

Women’s state pension age is rising in stages, a month at a time, and will reach 65 by 2018. The postponement of retirement will not stop then, and state pension age for men and women will rise to 66 by 2026 and 67 by 2028. It is not supposed to rise to 68 till 2044, but the government plans to review this decision in 2017 and many commentators expect them to speed up this process.

The government argues that this is a fair decision. George Osborne announced the principle behind it in his 2013 Autumn Statement:

We think a fair principle is that, as now, people should expect to spend up to a third of their adult life in retirement.

Based on latest life expectancy figures, applying that principle would mean an increase in the state pension age to 68 in the mid 2030s and to 69 in the late 2040s.

The Chancellor relied on people failing to think through what is fair and what isn’t in retirement policy. Most of us hope to have a few years of “active retirement” after we finish employment – time to spend doing things with friends and family, crossing off some of the items on our lifetime lists. One of the requirements for this is that we should be healthy enough to live an active life (this is not the same as not being disabled, disabled people can be as healthy or unhealthy as non-disabled people.)

Unfortunately, life expectancy figures are substantially higher than healthy life expectancy. In England, a boy born between 2011 and 2013 could expect to live, on average for 79.4 years, and a girl for 83.1. A man who did not retire till they were 69 could expect, on average, ten years of retirement and a woman 14 years. This is a long way from a third, but it does not sound unreasonable.

But, if we looked at retired people, we would find that very many of them were not healthy, not healthy enough for an active retirement. Of these English boys and girls born in 2011 – 13, the males could expect to live 63.3 years of their 79.4 years of life in “good” health and the females could expect 63.9 years of “good” health. (Most of us know that women can expect to live three or four years longer than men, the fact that the gap in healthy life expectancy is much smaller is less well-know.)

According to official figures, life expectancy and healthy life expectancy the Midlands is a little lower than for England as a whole. In both East and West Midlands, Healthy Life Expectancy is already lower than the current state pension age for men and it will be lower for women by 2018:

Life Expectancy (LE) and Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) at birth for English regions, 2009 - 2013

Regions

HLE (years)

LE (Years)

Men

South East

66.3

80.2

East of England

65.4

80.1

South West

65.2

79.9

England

63.5

79.1

London

63.2

79.6

East Midlands

63.0

79.0

West Midlands

62.2

78.6

Yorkshire and The Humber

61.9

78.3

North West

61.1

77.7

North East

60.0

77.8

Women

South East

67.7

83.8

South West

66.8

83.8

East of England

66.5

83.6

England

64.8

83.0

East Midlands

64.2

82.8

London

64.0

83.8

Yorkshire and The Humber

63.3

82.1

West Midlands

63.2

82.7

North West

62.7

81.6

North East

61.6

81.6

Figures like these, however, drastically misrepresent the unequal impact of raising the state pension age. There are certainly inequalities between regions, but the most shocking inequalities are between poorer and richer areas.

We can see this using a second set of official figures, in which England is divided into more than 32,000 areas. These are ranked from poorest to richest (using the English Indices of Deprivation) and then divided into ten deciles. The Office for National Statistics then calculates the life expectancy and the healthy life expectancy for the men and women in each decile (life expectancies are so different for men and women that it is not useful to report them together).

There is a clear “social gradient” in life expectancy:

Life expectancy at birth by decile of area deprivation, England, 2011-13

Life expectancy at birth by decile of area deprivation, England, 2011-13

The inequalities between the top and the bottom decile are greater than the differences between men and women. When we come to healthy life expectancy, this social gradient is sharper – the gap between the top and bottom deciles for life expectancy is 9 years for men and just under 7 for women, but for healthy life expectancy it is over 18 years for both. The fact that social inequalities in healthy life expectancy are greater than gender differences is very clear: the gap between any two deciles is less than the gap between men or women in that decile and the men or women in any other decile.

Healthy life expectancy at birth by decile of area deprivation, England, 2011-13

Healthy life expectancy at birth by decile of area deprivation, England, 2011-13

In the bottom 40 per cent of areas healthy life expectancy is lower than state pension age for women and in the bottom 50 per cent it is lower for men:

Healthy life expectancy at birth by decile of area deprivation, England, 2011-13

Decile

Men

Women

1 (most deprived)

52.2

52.4

2

56.2

56.3

3

58.4

59.6

4

61.6

61.6

5

62.8

64.2

6

65.5

65.7

7

66.5

67.0

8

67.5

68.0

9

68.5

69.4

10 (least deprived)

70.5

71.3

One problem with this analysis is that it does not identify the areas in each decile. In the final two charts we have taken healthy life expectancy at birth for men and women in upper tier local authorities in the Midlands and deducted current state pension age (65 for men, 62.7 for women). Areas on the left of these charts have average healthy life expectancy that is higher than state pension age, those one the right have lower healthy life expectancy than the state pension age.

Healthy life expectancy at birth relative to state pension age for men in Midlands local authorities

Healthy life expectancy at birth relative to state pension age for men in Midlands local authorities

Healthy life expectancy at birth relative to state pension age for women in Midlands local authorities

Healthy life expectancy at birth relative to state pension age for women in Midlands local authorities

These tables illustrate the unfairness of the arrangements for raising the state pension age. In the cities, both men and women already face a state pension age higher than healthy life expectancy in their area. By 2018, when women’s state pension age will be 2.3 years higher than it is now, men and women in most Midlands local authorities will face a retirement with a comparatively short period of health and activity. 

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