UK Report Raises Concerns About The State of Ageing

The state ageing in England

The State of Ageing report also shows a reduction in our life expectancy (of 0.3 years for women and 0.4 years for men). The authors are concerned. “Meanwhile, the number of years expected to spend in good health, without a disabling illness, continues to decline. It is now  62.4 years for men and 60.9 years for women.”

In addition, in the period when the state pension age has risen to 66, employment rates among people approaching retirement age have fallen to their lowest levels since 2016.

Implications of financial security

The State of Ageing findings say these factors have major implications for people’s financial security and for the quality of their homes as they age. The number of older people renting rather than owning their homes has reached an all-time high.

“The number of people in mid and later life who live alone – many without the traditional family structures our approach to ageing has historically relied on – has been increasing steadily. 1.3 million men aged 65 and over living alone today, up 67% between 2000 and 2019.  This has implications for housing, health and social care. The data confirms England is becoming a more challenging country to grow old in!”

The COVID-19 pandemic has, of course, contributed to many of these problems. However, there are longer-term issues that have been developing for some time. And they still will not go away as Britain’s return to life as it was before COVID, without some concerted action.

When it comes to the state of ageing, the richer will fare better… of course

It’s widely known that the chances of having a decent old age vary. The data amassed confirms that people who are the least well-off have the slimmest chance of all.

“Across England today – depending on where you live and how well-off you are – there are differences of up to ten years in how long you can expect to live. There are also more than 17 years in the time we get in good health without a disabling illness.”

Indeed, and most alarmingly, almost 1 in 5 homes headed by someone aged 60 or older are in a condition that endangers the health of the people who live there. In fact, almost 9,000 people died in England and Wales last year because their homes were too cold.

The State of Ageing report proclaims that  the UK state pension is one of the worst in Europe, providing just 58% of previous earnings from work. This is below the OECD average of 62%. Those who have to rely on the pension as a main or only source of income face a bleak financial future.

No room for complacency

All this data, say the authors, “demonstrates vividly that the UK cannot afford to be complacent about ageing.”

Britons cannot be complacent about the collective future of the population. This is especially true for those experiencing poverty, discrimination, and other disadvantages accumulated over the course of their lifetimes.

Unpacking the state of ageing 2022 report

The State of Ageing 2022 has five chapters: Health, Homes, Work, Communities and a chapter setting out the context in which the British population is ageing.

“Ultimately it shows that the experience of being older in England is getting considerably worse for many. “

While the authors make recommendations for action under each chapter, they state, “our overall recommendation is that the government appoints an Older People’s Commissioner for England to protect and promote the rights of older people and to help make England a better place to grow old in. In line with the existing Older People’s Commissioners in Wales and Northern Ireland, this role will champion the needs of older people, particularly those at greatest risk, and safeguard all our journeys into later life.”

According to State of Ageing authors, “Almost 1 in 5 people of pension age are now living in relative poverty, following a sharp increase (of 200,000 people) in the last year. This extends a worrying trend which first emerged in the middle of the last decade and means that there are now more than 2 million people of state pension age in the UK living in poverty.”

This comes after a long period of widening wealth and income inequalities among people in their 50s and 60s.

“The net (non-pension) wealth of the richest 20% of people in this age group doubled between 2002 and 2018, while that of the poorest 20% fell by 30%. And with declining home ownership, this age group will face even larger financial challenges in retirement.”

Last year, the authors of the State of Ageing report warned about the challenges around employment. They said the pandemic would push many out of the workforce for good, years before they reach state pension age.

They confirm: “This has now come to pass: the number of people aged 50 to 64 who are not engaged with the labour market in any way (that is, they are neither working nor looking for work) has risen by 228,000 since the start of the pandemic. The employment rate in this group has fallen by 1.8 percentage points.”

“After decades of narrowing, the employment rate gap between older and younger workers is now wider than it was two years ago. These trends are entirely at odds with the government’s ambitions to extend working lives, raise the state pension age, boost productivity and level-up the UK.” – State of Ageing report

The ageing are shut out, undervalued, and financially disadvantaged by an ageist labour market

But they reflect the reality for many individuals who feel shut out, undervalued, and financially disadvantaged by an ageist labour market. We now need to see the same levels of energy that have been directed towards staving off a spike in youth unemployment focused on programmes that will pull these lost workers back into the labour market.

“Employers struggling to recruit should look to the principles of age-friendly employment to recruit and retain this valuable workforce.”

This trend towards an increase in both the number and proportion of older renters is set to continue, as rates of homeownership among younger age groups continue to fall.

“Rising levels of private renting have major implications for financial insecurity among older people. The oldest renters – those aged 75 and over, spend almost half of their incomes on rent. Retirement, and the years leading up to it, can no longer be assumed to be a time of falling living costs.”

Private rentals are also the most likely to fail the government’s own standard of a ‘decent home’, almost a quarter of such homes are non-decent. There is a strong association between the condition of our homes and our health, with cold and damp causing and exacerbating conditions such as respiratory and cardiovascular disease.

So rising levels of private renting have serious implications not just for the finances of their older residents but for their health and safety too.

Disability-free life expectancy –the number of years on average people can expect to live without a disabling health condition – has continued its dramatic fall, particularly among women. And there is a shocking inequality in how much older people will live with illness and disability.

“At birth, people in the most deprived areas can expect to live for more than 17 years more with disabling health conditions than those in the least deprived areas. Living with a disability would not have to be a hardship if the world were structured with different access needs in mind. But it isn’t.”

For example, fewer than one in ten homes in England have accessibility features that would make it easier for someone with a disability to live there. And these trends tell us that the way our society is set up is increasingly damaging to our health.

A cross-departmental strategy

This is needed to coordinate government activity and funding to address the ageing population and level up the dramatic and growing inequality in the way we experience later life.

The report says: “Society needs a stronger voice to hold the government to account and to counter the ageism that is at the heart of many issues faced by as they grow older. An Older People’s Commissioner for England with statutory powers to protect and champion older people and the needs of our ageing society must be enshrined in law as has been done already in Wales and Northern Ireland.”

Collection of national data

The collection of national data needs to expand and become sufficiently robust, so the experiences of different groups can be more clearly understood, and ethnicity data reporting must be mandatory in all official and statutory statistics and data monitoring. The near-invisibility of older people from black, Asian, and minority ethnic groups in the data currently means we cannot fully understand the systemic discrimination that we know is faced by people from ethnic minority backgrounds, nor ensure that policies and practices are designed to level up and support people experiencing the greatest inequalities.

The State of Ageing report goes further to suggest the following changes:

Health:

• Concerted action from across government to reverse trends installing life expectancy and increasing amounts of time spent living with illness and disability.
• Co-ordinated action from across government to address stark and growing health inequalities.

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Housing:

• Focused action from across government to tackle the national crisis is our poor-quality housing stock.
• Introducing regulations to ensure that all new homes are fit for the future.

Work:

• Targeted, individualised back-to-work support for over 50s to address the particular challenges this group faces in the labour market, including ageism.
• The creation of workplaces that support longer working lives.

Communities:

• The creation of communities that enable older people to be active, participate in and shape the places in which they live.
• Recognition of and support for the role that community services and the voluntary sector play in the health and wellbeing of people as they grow older.

References

The information for this article has been derived from the State of Ageing report by The Centre for Ageing Better. A charitable foundation, funded by the National Lottery Community Fund.  The report looks at data from a wide range of sources such as the English Housing Survey, the GP Patient survey, the Health Survey for England, and the Community Life Survey. It also includes data as well as a host of official statistics from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and government sources such as the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities and the Department for Work and Pensions.

For more information on the report, click here:  The State of Ageing