The chances of reaching your century are probably greater than you think.
In the summer, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) issued some new calculations about the chances of anyone alive today living to the age of 100. Its work briefly grabbed the morning headlines and radio reports on an August day thin on news.
The DWP was probably using a quiet time for the press to garner support for the department’s plans for increasing the state pension age. After all, 65 looks like rather an early retirement age if you can hope to live to 100. As the brief extract from the DWP’s tables show, in the future the monarchy could be kept very busy with congratulatory messages to centenarians.
Chance of living to 100
|
Age now
|
20
|
30
|
40
|
50
|
60
|
70
|
|
Men
|
19.5%
|
16.5%
|
13.7%
|
11.4%
|
9.5%
|
8.2%
|
|
Women
|
26.6%
|
23.2%
|
20%
|
17%
|
14.5%
|
12.6%
|
Source: DWP August 2011
The fact that at age 60 nearly one in ten men and over one in seven women are expected to reach age 100 is one reason why annuity rates are not as attractive as they once were.