Male life expectancy in the UK has fallen for the first time since modern records began in the early 1980s, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
New data from the ONS has revealed that a boy born between 2018 and 2020 is expected to live until the age of 79. Girls born over the same period are expected to live until 82.9 years, unchanged from 2015-17.
The findings came after Public Health England estimated that life expectancy in England had fallen to its lowest level in a decade, falling by 1.3 years for men (to 78.7 years) and 0.9 years for women (to 82.7 years).
So exactly why has male life expectancy fallen?
What affects life expectancy?
Numerous factors can have an impact on life expectancy. These include living standards (largely determined by employment status and income), education and general wellbeing.
Life expectancy may also be affected by the quality and accessibility of the healthcare available, as well as nutrition and exercise, tobacco and alcohol consumption and other behaviours.
In the event of a pandemic, of course, life expectancy can also fall noticeably.
Why has male life expectancy dropped?
Ordinarily, we’d expect life expectancy to rise steadily over time - but in recent years in the UK, this trend has gone into reverse.
Life expectancy has fallen across most of Europe because of the pandemic, which has claimed nearly 1.3 million lives throughout the continent.
The ONS figures show, however, that male life expectancy was already starting to decline before the pandemic - it fell by seven weeks between 2015-17 and 2018-20.
Some observers, including Professor Sir Michael Marmot - who published a review into health inequalities last year - said years of government austerity had taken “a significant toll on equity and health”.
Life expectancy is considerably lower in the poorest parts of the country than in the richest parts. As well as living shorter lives, people in the poorest areas also spend - on average - a larger proportion of their lives in poor health.
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