Class & Health: 1840s to 2020s
A new report has charted a significant decline in healthy life expectancy over the last ten years. There has been a drop in healthy life expectancy of two years over the last ten years. In most cases that means people are becoming unwell with some of restrictive illness before they reach State pension age of 66 or 67,
The period covers the austerity years of the Tory/LibDem and then Tory Governments although the reports that the situation has not improved since July 2024. It might be suggested that an improvement might take longer than that even if investment in health care at the scale required was taking place.
As usual in Britain the matter is divided by class. The Guardian reports
The UK has deep and widening inequalities in healthy life expectancy. It is highest in wealthy Richmond upon Thames, London, where the average man enjoys 69.3 years and average woman 70.3 years in good health. However, in contrast, an average man in Blackpool gets just 50.9 years and the average woman in Hartlepool only 51.2 years.
There has been no decrease in overall life expectancy the report suggests that people have more years with less than full health.
Strikingly the picture of class division in health is also covered in E P Thompson’s Making of the English Working Class.
He argued that while in the 1830s and 1840s overall life expectancy was improving this was because a larger middle class were in better health. Many working class areas were not.
Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Classes 1842
Guardian report 27th April 2026
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