While full life expectancy at birth is 79.2 years and 82.9 years for men and women, healthy life expectancy is only 63.1 years and 63.7 years, respectively. Men can expect to live 79.6% of their lives in good health, while for women, the figure is smaller at 76.9% – driven by their longer full life expectancy.
The figures report the biggest fall in healthy life expectancy in recent times. Healthy life expectancy among women has fallen by 8 weeks, and by 2 weeks among men, since the previous figures.
Poor health has significant implications for our wellbeing in retirement.
Those born today are currently scheduled to receive their state pension from age 68. However, if an individual is forced to retire in line with their healthy life expectancy age of approximately 63, this would have significant implications for their income in retirement.
Aviva has calculated that if an average earner is automatically enrolled into a workplace pension from age 22 and contributes the minimum amount, they will amass a pension fund worth £167,000 if they were to retire at the state pension age of 68.
However, if the same 22 year old was forced to retire at 63 due to poor health, this would reduce their pension fund by £30,000 to just £137,000. These figures are in today’s prices. Forced early retirement has serious consequences for our finances in later life.
Commenting on today’s data Alistair McQueen, Head of Savings & Retirement at Aviva said: “We often focus on full life expectancy, but healthy life expectancy is arguably more significant for our wellbeing in old age.
“There are two ways to pay for our longer life – by saving more or by working longer. If poor health forces us to stop working early, this could impact our retirement finances by tens of thousands of pounds.
“Aviva’s 2017 Wellbeing Report identified that Brits are often struggling with stress, poor sleep, their weight and their diet. This is a recipe for poor health in later life.
“When discussing retirement planning we tend to focus on our financial investments. It’s time to focus on our health and wellbeing investments too.”
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