Healthy life expectancy is falling: Time for a rethink of state pension age rises?

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As the state pension age is set to increase, average healthy life expectancy across the UK is decreasing, creating concerns over quality of life in retirement and people not having access to the state pension when faced with early retirement. How important is healthy life expectancy in setting the state pension age? 

Thinktank the International Longevity Centre-UK has urged the Department for Work and Pensions to set out its plans for the 2022 independent state pension age review. The state pension age is gradually increasing and is due to reach 67 by 2028. It is expected to go up to 68 between 2037 and 2039, but the government has planned to review this before legislating for the increase.

‘Little progress’ made to increase healthy life expectancy

The Office for National Statistics’ next ‘health state life expectancies’ report is due to be released in February 2022 but is predicted to show a decrease due to factors such as Covid. The government has set itself a target of increasing healthy life expectancy by five years by 2035, yet ILC argue that little progress has been made so far.

“Covid-19 has likely had an impact on life expectancy and certainly had an impact on the employment rates of older workers. It’s also highlighted the huge disparities in how long we live and how healthy we are. Too many people are being forced out of work before state pension kicks in,” said director of ILC, David Sinclair.

Across the UK, life expectancy at birth in 2018 to 2020 was estimated to be 79.3 years for men and 83.1 years for women in England. Like the healthy life expectancy, this also saw a fall but by 7.8 weeks according to the ONS. Due to this, many people feel aggrieved that they will be made to wait longer for their state pension despite living for less time on average and less time living healthier.

“Considering how effectively we support people to work longer must play a part in the decision about whether to increase the state pension age,” said Sinclair. “[The government] must be clear about how they will mitigate the impact on those of us who aren’t living longer and healthier lives.”

Between 2017 and 2019, healthy life expectancy stayed the same for men but went down for women. For example, an English woman could expect to live 83.4 years, of which 19.9 years would have been spent in ‘not good’ health. This is 24% of life span according to independent charity The King’s Fund. Although women live an average of 3.6 years longer than men, most of that time (3.3 years) is spent in poor health.

Co-founder of policy specialists Aries Insight, Ian Neale, said this is likely to not impact changes in the state pension: “I am not a statistician, but my hunch is that a professional would not treat a short-term decrease in life expectancy alongside the much longer timeframe over which state pension ages rise.”

This is especially relevant when looking at specific countries. “I think it’s also worth noting the variations within countries and between smaller regions of the UK. In some areas such as Northern Ireland, life expectancy actually increased,” he said. 

The ILC has called on the government to consider these variations too: “It is vital that government doesn’t dodge the inequalities issues. We need a plan to level up healthy life expectancy,” said Sinclair.
 
With inequalities taken into account, the picture is even starker for healthy life expectancies, with a difference of 18.3 years for men and 18.8 years for women between socio-economic groups, according to ILC’S ‘Making the extra years count’ report.  Lower socio-economic status is also linked to earlier onset of long-term conditions, which can lead to earlier disability and dependency. 
 
Should this impact on the rate of state pension age increasing?
 
This is not the first time life expectancy has not been steadily rising. In 2015 there was a fall in life expectancy and a slowdown in mortality improvements after 2011. The King’s Fund links this to possible consequences of austerity-driven constraints on health, social care and other public spending and their impact on services. 
 
It also acknowledges that statistical associations may not prove causality, and that there could be other explanations. For example, the growing complexity of medical conditions in an ageing population or a bad flu season. 
 
“I understand there is evidence from medical statistics that figures for certain indicators of poor health, such as obesity, diabetes and asthma have increased quite sharply in recent years. These are societal factors which are susceptible to control by medical and government intervention; that is to say, decreases in healthy life expectancy are neither inevitable nor continuous in future,” said Neale.
 
As Covid has had a significant impact on health, future trends in mortality are unpredictable and will depend on the government’s response to the pandemic, the roll-out and efficacy of the vaccine and other unforeseen developments. 
 
“In my opinion it does not make good sense to conclude from these figures that they represent an irreversible future trend, or that people’s future lifespan is being unavoidably curtailed, or that people will enjoy fewer years in retirement as a result. Action to significantly reduce pollution of the air we breathe will alone contribute to an improvement in healthy life expectancy,” Neale said.
 

How should the government take into consideration healthy life expectancy rates and the pandemic when deciding state pension age?

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