Life expectancy is improving so much the chances of living to 100 years old will increase from 20 to one now to evens by 2066.
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This astonishing leap in longevity means someone reaching 55 years old now has an average life expectancy of 85 years, leaving them 30 years in retirement if they have enough money to give up work today.
The chances of living longer are still reasonable, says new data from the Office of National Statistics.
Someone aged 55 has a one in four chance of reaching 93 years old, while the odds of 98 are 10 to one.
The ONS has issued two new separate sets of data for life expectancy.
How your lifespan is calculated
Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time someone is expected to live, based on the year of their birth, current age and other demographic factors including their sex.
Two tables measure life expectancy – period and cohort.
Period life expectancy takes mortality rates from a single year and assumes those rates apply throughout the rest of a person’s life.
Period life expectancy at birth is projected to reach 88.9 years for women and 86.4 years for men in 2066.
Cohort life expectancy gives the probability of a person from a group with the same date of birth dying at each age over their lifetime.
Find out your life expectancy
Cohort life expectancy at birth in is projected to reach 98.1 years for women and 96.1 years for men by 2066.
In 2066, the ONS says half of new born baby girls and 44% of new born baby boys are likely to live to at least 100 years old.
“Improvements in life expectancy in the 2016-based projections are slightly lower than those projected in the 2014-based projections. This has been driven by higher mortality rates in 2015 and 2016 than were projected in the 2014-based projections and lower rates of mortality improvement at older ages over the first 25 years of the projections,” said ONS statistician Sophie Sanders.
If you want to know how long you can expect to live, try the ONS free online longevity calculator that returns your cohort life expectancy and odds of reaching up to 100 years old.