On the go: A quarter of UK residents will be aged 65 years or over within the next 50 years. This is a result of improvements in life expectancy.
Even though these have recently stalled, people are living longer; babies born in 2015 to 2017 are expected to live 79.2 years if male (up 2.0 years since 2005 to 2007) or 82.9 years if female (up 1.4 years since 2005 to 2007) according to latest Office for National Statistics figures.
The UK population has also doubled over the last 140 years, reaching a new high of 66 million people in 2017. The ONS forecasts that there will be almost 73 million people in the UK by 2041.
One serious worry is the ageing population and the consequences for social care and pension provision – around 18.2 per cent of the UK population were aged 65 years or over at mid-2017, compared with 15.9 per cent in 2007. This is projected to grow to 20.7 per cent by 2027.
Commenting on today’s ONS data, Steven Cameron, pensions director at Aegon, said:
“The UK’s population is living longer and there is a pressing need for the government to acknowledge and take action to support the older generation.
“While the additional funding for social care outlined in the Budget is welcome, it is simply a short-term fix for councils burdened by huge demands on already stretched resources. A long-term stable agreement on how social care is funded is one of society’s greatest challenges and the highly anticipated green paper which remains outstanding needs to address this as soon as possible.”
