Shock fall in life expectancy for women over 60

LIFE expectancy for older women has fallen after decades of rises as unhealthy lifestyles and cuts to social care take their toll.

The predicted life spans of women aged 65, 75, 85 and 95 fell in 2012 – the first time since 1995 that falls in all four age groups were recorded.

By 2013, the average 75-yearold woman could expect to live another 13 years and five weeks – five weeks less than in 2011, a Government report shows. For a woman aged 85, the expected span was six years and 42 weeks – two and a half months less.

The study also found increasing life expectancy for men in their sixties and seventies had stalled, and had fallen for those in their eighties and nineties.

If the change becomes a trend, it could mark the end of an expectation by baby boomers that they will continue to live longer and longer.

Life expectancy for English women is already among the worst in Western Europe.

The findings will add to fears that the rising consumption of alcohol and unhealthy food is taking a terrible toll. Poor standards in many care homes and reduced home help could also prompt early deaths, experts say.

The deterioration follows three decades in which annual average life expectancy has increased by 1.2 per cent for men aged 65 and 0.7 per cent for women.

The study by Public Health England said it was too early to say whether the change was a long-term one.

Professor John Ashton, president of the UK Faculty of Public Health, said: ‘One of the issues we have seen is women living lifestyle’s becoming more like those of men over recent decades, with more smoking and drinking.’ He also suggested the falls could reflect cutbacks in social care, which he said had been ‘hammered’ in recent years.

Recent governments had failed to invest in care for an ageing population, Professor Ashton said, leaving insufficient help for the frail and vulnerable.

He added: ‘There has been a failure of successive governments in that we should have seen that trends were changing, that more people would be living longer and we needed to put services in place to look after them.

‘We are letting down a generation which came back from the war and built the welfare state.’

Public Health England said the fall among women aged 65 was the first since 1995, while that among those aged 75 had not been seen for nine years. It called the falls statistically significant.

Since then, the figures for women in their sixties have recovered to their 2011 level, but the 2013 statistics for older women remained worse than those two years earlier.

It means average life expectancy for a women of 85 is now two and a half months shorter than in 2011. Health officials need a third year’s data to estab- lish whether the figures from 2012 and 2013 mean life expectancy is levelling off or entering a more worrying decline.

The report said: ‘Within England, although female life expectancy at all four ages fell in 2012, and for males it fell at ages 85 and 95 and remained static at ages 65 and 75, it is too early to say whether this represents a slowing in the upward trend or the start of a downward trend.’

Public Health England said the impact of the recession could be one reason why life expectancy fell in several European countries. Flu outbreaks and cold winters may also be to blame.

Caroline Abrahams, of the charity Age UK, said: ‘This is like the canary in the coal mine – telling us something has changed for the worse.

‘The most likely culprit is the rapid decline of state-funded social care, which is leaving hundreds of thousands of older people to struggle on alone at home without any help.

‘More and more are living with several incurable conditions. Determined action to sustain social care and to support older people more effectively can hopefully make this a blip rather than the start of a terrible trend.’

Despite the falls, a 65-year-old man in the UK can expect to live 18 years and six months – still almost five and a half more years than 30 years ago. A woman of 65 can expect 21 more years – a gain of almost four years in the last three decades. Men of 75 should live 11 years and 15 weeks, with 13 years five weeks for women, while at 85, men can expect five years and 42 weeks, and women six years and 42 weeks.

‘Like the canary in the coal mine’