LIVING FOR LONGER… AND LONGER
Evermore people are reaching the age of 100
By ALICE CACHIA
THE number of people surviving until the age of 100 is on the rise. New data from the Office for National Statistics shows there were 14,430 centenarians in the UK last year.
Of this figure, some 860 had survived until the impressive age of at least 105.
The data goes back as far as 2002, when 8,120 people lived past the age of 100. Some 370 of those were aged 105 and older.
Although the number of centenarians in 2017 is a slight dip from 14,510 the previous year, an ONS statistician said that this is due to lower numbers of births during World War One.
They predict that the number of centenarians is likely to increase again from 2019, in line with historic birth patterns.
Just one in every six centenarians in the UK was male in 2017, proving that women continue to outlive their male peers.
But the data shows that the gap is narrowing, as more men continue to reach old age. In 2002 the ratio of centenarians was eight women to every man. By 2010 that had narrowed to to six women to every man, and the figure for 2017 is the lowest gap on record - at just under five women to every man. The ONS puts this down to faster improvements in mortality for men than for women. Wales had the highest proportion of centenarians in the UK, with 26 for every 100,000 of the population. England had 22 for every 100,000 people, Scotland 17 and Northern Ireland 15.
But although the number of centenarians is on the rise, they still make up just 2.5% of the population aged 90 years and older.
Meanwhile, the most recent figures show the average life expectancy for boys born in the UK in 2017 is 79 years while for girls it is 83, suggesting most of us are still unlikely to be getting the coveted letter from the Queen. According to Age UK, the prevalence of nearly all major chronic and long-term health conditions increases significantly with age. A recent study by health journal The Lancet found that the number of people in the UK aged 85 or older who will require round-the-clock care will nearly double over the next 20 years.