The number of years people in the UK can expect to spend in ‘good’ health decreased for the period 2022-24, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), prompting concerns around state pension age increases and later life income.

According to the ONS, men can expect to spend 60.7 years, or 77 per cent of their life, in good health, while women can expect 60.9 years (73 per cent) of good health.

These figures represented decreases of 1.8 years for men and 2.5 years for women compared to the previous non-overlapping period (2019-21).

While life expectancy saw a small increase, healthy life expectancy at birth for men and women fell to its lowest level since the ONS started collecting data on healthy life expectancy in 2011-13.

This has prompted concerns from the pensions industry, with LCP partner, Steve Webb, noting that while fiscal pressures were motivating governments to hike state pension ages, this risked creating a “growing chasm” of years in poor health before the state pension kicks in.

“Benefit support for people under pension age is very meagre, and substantially below the rates available to pensioners,” Webb continued.

“The government needs to tread very carefully in making further changes to state pension ages, to avoid the risk of condemning growing numbers of people to living on the breadline for years in the run-up to drawing a state pension.”

Hargreaves Lansdown head of retirement analysis, Helen Morrissey, highlighted the huge regional differences in healthy life expectancy, warning these discrepancies would have “massive implications” for retirement.

“Poor health can have massive impacts on our ability to keep working and building up a pension for our retirement,” she added.

“It puts people in the sticky position of building a smaller pension because their working lives are shorter but needing it to last longer.

“Added to this is the issue with the state pension. The state pension age will soon be making its way up to age 67.

“These will be big issues for the government, with a review into the state pension age ongoing. The issue of healthy life expectancy will be key in any discussions around whether the state pension age needs to rise further.”

Morrissey said that auto-enrolment would play a huge role in boosting people’s pension adequacy over time, and highlighted the importance of building savings over and above pensions.

PensionBee VP personal finance, Maike Currie, said the figures had far-reaching implications for policymakers, the NHS, and people’s personal finances.

“Retirement spending can often be higher in the early years when we’re healthy, active and spending on travel and experiences,” Currie stated. “It then dips as life and mobility slows.

“Later-life care can be prolonged and eye-wateringly expensive, yet the UK still lacks dedicated savings products to help households plan for this phase - a gap that disproportionately affects women, who typically live longer but retire with significantly smaller pension pots.

“The result is a growing mismatch between longer lives, shrinking healthy years and a system still poorly designed for the true costs of aging.”

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