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Life expectancy in UK stalls for first time on record

Growth in life expectancy in the UK has come to a halt, new figures show: PA Wire/PA Images
Growth in life expectancy in the UK has come to a halt, new figures show: PA Wire/PA Images

Growth in life expectancy in Britain has come to a halt, new figures show.

A girl born between 2015 and 2017 is expected to live until she is 82.9 years old — no change on the previous figure for 2014-16, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

For baby boys born in the same period there is also no change, at 79.2 years.

Life expectancy in some parts of the UK has actually fallen. For males and females in Scotland and Wales it is down by 0.1 years, while males in Northern Ireland have seen a similar fall.

Sophie Sanders, of the ONS Centre for Ageing and Demography, said the figures represented “the lowest improvements in life expectancy since the start of the series in 1980 to 1982.

“This slowing in improvements is reflected in the chances of surviving to age 90 years from birth, which has also seen virtually no improvement since 2012 to 2014,” she added.

UK life expectancy remains lower than in many other comparable countries. It lags behind nations including Switzerland, Japan, France, Holland, Spain and Italy.

More men are reaching their 100th birthday, ONS also revealed. The gap between the number of male and female centenarians has narrowed over the last 15 years. In 2002, there were 8.22 women aged 100 years old or over for every man in the UK. Last year, there were 4.85 female centenarians to every male centenarian.

While women have higher life expectancy, fast improvements in death rates among men decades ago mean more are now living longer, ONS said.

The number of centenarians de-creased slightly between 2016 and 2017, the figures show. There were a total of 14,430 people 100 years old or over last year, down from 14,510, corresponding with a sharp drop in birth rates 100 years ago during the First World War.