March of the 90-somethings
Record 600,000 nonagenarians last year ... but Covid could mean fewer reach 100
THE number of Britons in their 90s reached a record level of more than 600,000 last year.
Gathered together, the country’s nonagenarians would fill a city the size of Bristol.
Rising numbers of the very old are a result of a baby boom in the 1920s following the First World War, and a century of medical and public health advances.
According to official figures, there were 605,181 people in the UK aged between 90 and 99 in the middle of 2019 – a figure which has more than doubled over the last 25 years.
The increasing life expectancy of men compared with women has also led to an unprecedented number of males in their 90s – almost one in three in the age group.
The leap in nonagenarians would, in normal times, be expected to lead to a record number of centenarians next year as thousands of 99-year-olds reach their landmark 100th birthday and receive a greeting from the Queen.
But the heavy toll of the coronavirus among older people may have hit life expectancy levels by the time new estimates are made.
The Office for National Statistics found that life expectancy picked up slightly last year after a decade on pause. The reasons for the slowdown remain a matter of controversy – analysts have pointed to austerity in the 2010s, the return of diseases once thought conquered, and the impact of a majority of women with similar working lives to men.
Life expectancy increased fastest in London and the South – notably in newly gentrified London boroughs such as Tower Hamlets, Hackney and Newham.
However there were fewer signs of improvement in the North, and there are wide gaps between different parts of the country. Last year, a girl born in Westminster could expect to live for 87.2 years – nearly 14 years longer than the 73.6 years predicted for a boy born in Glasgow.
Rose Giddings of the ONS said: ‘The UK population aged 90 years and over grew to its largest size in 2019. Historical improvements to male life expectancy continued to narrow the gap between men and women in this age group to its lowest level on record.’
She added: ‘ Despite a low number of births 100 years earlier, we saw an uptick in the number of people aged 100 years and over in 2019, due to medical advances and improvements in public health during their lifetime.’
She said the ‘birth spike’ after the First World War ‘resulted in an unusually large birth cohort who are aged 99 in our latest figures’.
In 1990 there were more than four female nonagenarians for every male, but last year there were just over two women to every one man. The figures also showed there were 13,330 British centenarians last year. Average life expectancy across the UK last year was 79.4 years for men and 83.1 years for women – 6.3 weeks and 7.3 weeks longer, respectively, than in estimates for 2018.
The ONS said the improvements were the greatest for five years, but the impact of coronavirus will not be known until next year.
Westminster had the highest life expectancy for both men and women – 84.88 and 87.22 years, and Glasgow the lowest for both sexes, at 73.6 years for men, and 78.5 for women. In England, Blackpool had the worst life expectancy for both men and women, at 74.40 and 79.54 years respectively.
Catherine Foot, of charity the Centre for Ageing Better, said: ‘These inequalities in life expectancy are shocking, with boys born in Westminster set to live over a decade longer than those born in Blackpool. What is particularly disheartening is that these gaps have widened, not narrowed, in recent years.
‘This inequality predates the Covid crisis, and will only get worse in the wake of the pandemic – we have seen just how hard those in poorer areas have been hit by the disease compared to those in better-off communities.’
‘Inequality will only get worse’