National Life Tables - life expectancy in the UK, 2021 - 2023

Product Description

Trends in period life expectancy, a measure of the average number of years people will live beyond their current age, analysed by age and sex for England and Wales.

Main points

• Life expectancy at birth was 79.0 years for males and 83.0 years for females inEngland and Wales in 2021 to 2023.
• Life expectancy at birth increased by 13 weeks from 78.8 years for males and 11 weeks from 82.8 years for females, compared with 2020 to 2022, the most recent overlapping period.
• Life expectancy at birth is 26 weeks lower for males and 13 weeks lower for females, compared with 2017 to 2019, the last complete period before the start of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
• While improvements in life expectancy have been slow for over a decade, the pandemic led to increased mortality in recent years; the impact of this is seen in lower period life expectancy estimates between 2018 to 2020 and 2021 to 2023.
• A fall in period life expectancy does not mean that a baby born in 2021 to 2023 will go on to live a shorter life; average lifespan is determined by changes in mortality rates across their lifetime, and if mortality rates improve, period life expectancy will go back up.