Postreproductive disability-free life expectancy – An increasing gender gap

Abstract

The demise of the Duke of Edinburgh, whilst a sad event, is an example of a healthy and productive lifespan, which most would like to emulate. Most women now have a one in six chance of achieving his age. In 2016–2018, an English female could expect to live 83.2 years, of which 19.3 years (23%) would have been spent in ‘not good’ health. That is with disability, and although females live an average of 3.6 years longer than males, much of that time is in fact, spent in poor health with disability – they experience only 0.5 more years of good health than men. Rates of disability-free life expectancy are similar to those for healthy life expectancy. When broken down for individual illness and social groups these sex discrepancies become even larger.