2 Current life expectancy
2.3 Social class Socioeconomic status has a big influence on life expectancy; Table 4 shows life expectancy at age 65, by social class*, in England and Wales for 2002-05. Table 4 shows that, for both men and women, there is a social gradient such that those in the unskilled manual class have the lowest life expectancy and those in the professional class the highest.
Table 4 Life expectancy in England and Wales at age 65: by social class and gender, 2002-05 Class description
males
females
Non-manual I
Professional
18.3
22.0
II
Managerial and technical/intermediate
18.0
21.0
17.4
19.9
IIIM Skilled manual
16.3
18.7
IV
Partly skilled
15.7
18.9
V
Unskilled
14.1
17.7
16.6
19.4
IIIN Skilled non-manual Manual
Social class reflects a person’s affluence, education, lifestyle and position in society. Money buys you healthy food, good housing and better medical treatment. Education provides you with knowledge about health risks and healthy behaviour. Social capital helps you when you need information, connections and emotional and practical support (Hoffman, 2005). Such support may be one reason why married people live longer than single people (Tuljapurkar and Boe, 1998).
* For definitions of each class, see Table 5, pg 15
14 | Apocalyptic demography? Putting longevity risk in perspective
All
Source: Office for National Statistics (2007a), Variations persist in life expectancy by social class