The population of Great Britain has been living longer over the past 20 years, but the extra years have not necessarily been lived in good health. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy (expected years of life in good or fairly good health) both increased between 1981 and 2001, with life expectancy increasing at a faster rate than healthy life expectancy.
Life expectancy is higher for females than for males. In 2001 the life expectancy at birth of females was 80.4 years compared with 75.7 years for males. However, life expectancy for males has been increasing faster than for females. There was an increase of 4.8 years in male life expectancy between 1981 and 2001. For females the corresponding increase was 3.6 years.
The gap in healthy life expectancy between males and females is smaller than for total life expectancy. In 2001, healthy life expectancy at birth was 67.0 years for males and 68.8 years for females, a gap of 1.8 years.
The difference between life expectancy and healthy life expectancy can be regarded as an estimate of the number of years a person can expect to live in poor health. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for males was 6.5 years. By 2001 this had risen to 8.7 years. Females can expect to live longer in poor health than males. In 1981 the expected time lived in poor health for females was 10.1 years, rising to 11.6 years in 2001.
