Most over 50s overestimate their lifespan

• Men over 50 think they’ll live 3.9 years longer and one in ten think they’ll reach 100
• Women over 50 think they’ll live five months longer
• Find out how long you might live with SunLife’s death clock

New figures out today show that life expectancy has improved; the biggest jump since the start of the decade.

According to the ONS*, life expectancy at birth is 79.9 for men (up three months on 2018) and 83.6 for women (up four month) while men who are 65 now can expect to live until they’re 84.1 and women who are 65 until they’re 86.5.

But it seems our perceptions of life expectancy are even higher than reality – over 50s experts SunLife interviewed thousands of people in their 50s, 60s and 70s** and found that most expect to live longer than average.

SunLife found that men over 50 think they’ll live to 83.8; three quarters they think they’ll live until at least 80. Almost one in three believe they’ll live to 90 and while around one in ten think they’ll hit a century.

Women over 50 think they will live to 84 on average; four out of five think they’ll reach at least 80, almost a third (32%) 90 but fewer think they’ll reach 100 than men – 7.2%.

For those who are already 65, SunLife found that men and women over-estimate their life expectancy a little, but are actually pretty accurate: men think they will live another 20.9 years – over two years longer than the ONS life expectancy says they will (18.8), while women think they have another 21.4 years on average – which is pretty accurate for a 65-year-old woman (21.5).

But what about you? You can find out how long you are likely to live using SunLife’s death clock. It takes your gender, age as well as lifestyle and environmental factors into account to predict how long you will live.

Ian Atkinson, marketing director at SunLife said: “Our research shows that while life expectancy overall may no longer be improving, many people in their 50s, 60s and 70s think they will live longer than the average life expectancy in the UK average, with almost a third believing they’ll reach 90.

“This could be because most people over 50 are living healthier lives now than when they were younger. According to our research, 87% of people over 50 have made changes to try and live healthier lives since turning 50;60% are eating more healthily, almost half (46%) exercise more and 21% have cut back on how much they drink.

“Our Death Clock uses things like diet, exercise, environment and social life to calculate how long you might live given your current lifestyle – if you don’t like what you see, play around with the answers to see what changes you need to make to add a few years!”

Case Study

When Chris Zaremba, 62 was 50, he weighed 18 stone, lived on takeaways and was told he wouldn’t make it until 60. He has now turned his life around and, according to the death clock, is now expected to live until he is 88, almost a decade longer than average and five years longer than a 65-year-old.

Published: 04 March 2020