Professor Sarah Harper comments on the latest ILC-UK annual flagship 'State of the Nation' Factpack in The Guardian.
Harper said that the report highlights that pensioners were far from entering an age of rest. “Actually, people are still in the labour market, they are doing large amounts of caring not only for grandchildren but for other other adults, so it is actually for many people a time of activity still,” she said.
But Harper cautioned it is difficult to measure healthy life expectancy, and flagged the large geographical variations.
“The evidence seems to be that we are pushing back the onset of disability and therefore if anything we can expect people in their 60s and even early 70s probably to have better health and therefore to be able to keep active for longer,” she said. However, she noted that evidence also suggests an increase in time spent living with disability among the oldest members of the population.
Read the article: We're living longer but in poorer health, warns thinktank
