Technically everyone wants it but it throws up some rather unpalatable questions. For example, we may all be living longer, but what is that quality of life likely to be? Medical science can keep sick people going for a while longer but do they, heart of hearts, really want to be around?
The Longevity Science Advisory Panel, supported by Legal & General, is trying to address some of these questions. A small group of experts drawn from a variety of fields is attempting to draw out some of the fundamental issues, and perhaps deal with some of the thorny problems being tackled by government departments.
One of the most pressing questions at present is the historical discrepancy between men and women. One of the most prevailing trends when it comes to longevity is the fact that women live longer than men.
There are biological differences. Testosterone is a more dangerous hormone than oestroegen, in that it encourages men to do daft things that can get them killed and is bad for the heart. Oestrogen on the other hand protects tissue ageing. Likewise, men do badly on the genetic front as they do not have the spare X chromosome that can be a fallback option, unlike women with the two X chromosomes.
There were 5 per cent more boys born live than girls in 2011 and some could argue that there are evolutionary reasons why there are more boys born than girls.
But the challenge for those in the longevity business is that men are starting to catch up.
Joseph Lu, the head of the longevity risk team for L&G, said: “The differences between life expectancy started to grow from the industrial revolution to four years’ difference in the 1980s, and it’s come down again. At the moment we’re 2.5 years’ difference and we expect it to go down, and it’s prompted us to ask whether it will ever converge.”
Figures from the working party for the continuous mortality investigation, from the Institute of Actuaries and Faculty of Actuaries, published in 2009 showed that the mortality rate had improved far more for men in the past 25 years than it had for women.
Mortality
The rate of change for men aged 40 to 89 was 2.1 per cent a year, compared with women of the same age and for the same period of 1.7 per cent. Women’s mortality rate improved by 0.8 per cent in the past 125 years, compared to 0.5 per cent for men.
A big reason for this is the decline in smoking, which has had a bigger impact than advances in medical science, assisted also by the change in occupations.
