National Life Tables, United Kingdom 2018-2020

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 the UK and its constituent countries.

Main points

• Life expectancy at birth in the UK in 2018 to 2020 was 79.0 years for males and 82.9 years for females; this represents a fall of 7.0 weeks for males and almost no change for females (a slight increase of 0.5 weeks) from the latest non-overlapping period of 2015 to 2017.
• Life expectancy at age 65 years was 18.5 years for males and 21.0 years for females; these estimates are very similar to those for 2015 to 2017 with a slight decline of 1.0 weeks for males and an increase of 3.1 weeks for females.
• Across the UK, life expectancy at birth in 2018 to 2020 was estimated to be 79.3 years for males and 83.1 years for females in England, 76.8 years for males and 81.0 years for females in Scotland, 78.3 years for males and 82.1 years for females in Wales, and 78.7 years for males and 82.4 years for females in Northern Ireland.
• These life tables cover mortality in the UK for the period from 2018 to 2020 and are the first to include the higher mortality observed in 2020 during the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
• In the UK the median age at death was 82.3 years for males and 85.8 years for females and the modal (most common) age at death was 86.7 years for males and 89.3 years for females in 2018 to 2020; these show the typical ages at which death occurs and were very similar to the estimates for 2015 to 2017.