Life expectancy for successive generations

Successive generations are living longer, but the gains are getting smaller

Longevity is often considered a sign of the health and prosperity of a country’s population. Comparing changes over time in chances of survival at different ages helps to capture where improvements to health have been made and where future improvements may occur. 

This chart shows the proportion of people from a given year of birth (a cohort) who survived or are expected to survive to a certain age.  

• Of people born in 1905, 66% of women and 59% of men survived to 60 years of age. Throughout the 20th century, big gains in infant mortality and advances in infectious disease control led to improved survival rates, with 91% of women and 87% of men from the cohort born in 1955 surviving to age 60.   
• Survival rates at age 60 – and at every age – have improved between each cohort. On the chart, this has the effect of pushing the survival curves out, towards the top right corner. Increased survival at older ages is party reflective of becoming better at diagnosing and treating cardiovascular disease and cancer.
• However, with mortality improvements having significantly slowed or completely stalled in the UK, gains have become smaller between cohorts. On the chart, this can be seen in the smaller shifts of the curves towards the top right corner. Of people born in 2022, a projected 96% of women and 94% of men will survive to age 60 – both only a 1 percentage-point increase compared with the cohort born 17 years earlier.