A drop in healthy life expectancy poses challenges for retirement planning, warn industry experts.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed that in 2022-24, men in the UK can expect to spend 60.7 years in ‘good’ general health, a drop of 1.8 years compared with 2019-22.
Meanwhile, women can expect to spend 60.9 years in good health, a decrease of 2.5 years compared with 2019-21.
Despite modest increases in life expectancy since 2019-21, healthy life expectancy for both men and women is now at its lowest level since records began in 2011-13.
The data showed huge differences across the country, with those living in Richmond-upon-Thames enjoying the highest healthy life expectancy for both men (69.3 years) and women (70.3 years). Blackpool has the lowest at 50.9 and 51.8 years respectively.
Helen Morrissey, head of retirement analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, warned that the discrepancies have “massive implications” for retirement planning.
“Poor health can have massive impacts on our ability to keep working and building up a pension for our retirement. It puts people in the sticky position of building a smaller pension because their working lives are shorter but needing it to last longer.”
With the State Pension age set to rise to 67, Morrissey said there will be many who will have a gap of several years between potentially having to leave work and being able to claim the state benefit.
“These will be big issues for the Government, with a review into the State Pension age ongoing. The issue of healthy life expectancy will be key in any discussions around whether the State Pension age needs to rise further. It shows the huge importance of offering flexible working arrangements, or re-training, to those who may still be able to keep working in some capacity,” said Morrissey.
“It also shows the massive importance of building savings over and above pensions if you are able to. It might be the case that you need to leave or make big modifications to your working life at an age where you are unable to access your pension. In this case, having money in ISAs and savings accounts will be hugely important in giving you something else to draw from,” she added.
Maike Currie, VP personal finance at PensionBee, said: “Retirement spending can often be higher in the early years when we’re healthy, active and spending on travel and experiences. It then dips as life and mobility slows. It can then rise again sharply as health needs increase and care costs bite.
“Later–life care can be prolonged and eye-wateringly expensive, yet the UK still lacks dedicated savings products to help households plan for this phase – a gap that disproportionately affects women, who typically live longer but retire with significantly smaller pension pots. The result is a growing mismatch between longer lives, shrinking healthy years and a system still poorly designed for the true costs of aging.”
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