Men’s life expectancy rises by 1.4 years in the past decade

Men in Jersey Living Longer, But Women’s Life Expectancy Stalls, Report Finds

Men in Jersey are now living, on average, one year and four months longer than they were a decade ago, according to new research from Public Health Jersey.

However, the study found that women’s life expectancy has not changed during the same period.

The latest figures show that women in Jersey can expect to live to 84.9 years, while men’s average life expectancy is 81.3 years.

Public Health Jersey said no single factor appeared to explain the modest rise in male life expectancy. Instead, it was likely due to a combination of improvements in several areas of health and wellbeing — including declining smoking rates and better medical treatments.

The report also revealed that Jersey’s overall life expectancy at birth is about two years higher than in England, and around one year higher than in the South West of England. It is similar to Guernsey’s for both men and women, at birth and at age 65.

At age 65, islanders can expect to live another 21.3 years on average — 22.5 years for women and 19.8 years for men.

When it comes to healthy life expectancy, researchers estimated that men could expect around 65.4 years of good health, while women were predicted to have about four fewer healthy years. This represents a drop of 8.3 years for women since the 2016–2018 period.

Each year, residents from 3,000 to 5,000 households across the island take part in health surveys, which are used to calculate healthy life expectancy.

Public Health Jersey cautioned that there is a “reasonable amount of uncertainty” in these figures, as they rely on self-reported health information, which can lead to over- or under-estimation.

For people aged 65, the average healthy life expectancy was found to be 13.2 years. Women at that age could expect 14 more years in good or very good health, compared with 12.3 years for men — a figure that has remained largely unchanged since 2016–2018, researchers said.