Plans to deal with pension shortfalls by encouraging people to work for longer received a dash of cold water today. Three-quarters of us could be too ill to work, Professor Sir Michael Marmot of University College London warns in a new report.
All but the richest Britons suffer years of ill health. People in the richest neighbourhoods in England live seven years longer than in the poorest, and enjoy an extra 17 years of good health.
Even if you exclude the poorest five per cent and the richest five per cent the gap in life expectancy between those in low and high income places is still six years, and in disability-free life expectancy 13 years.
Much more needs to be done to address health inequalities if raising the retirement age to 68 is really to mean people remaining active and working for longer, the report warns.
The report is not the work of some maverick outfit, but the final paper from the Marmot Commission – set up in 2008 at the request of the Secretary of State for Health. The Commission, chaired by Sir Michael Marmot, was tasked with finding the most effective strategies to reducing health inequalities in the country.
Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review)
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Want this to be a reality ? then also do something about reskilling or retraining the aging amonst us, simply put and brutally, those who have the least control over their own lives, are the ones who die earliest or get ill more often.
This nation needs to move towards a position where the idea is that restitution is the ideal, for all who lose work, not punishment, or revenge, and compulsion.
In reality, most men from the lower class groups, die within two years of retirement, simply because they have a self image, based on the work they have done all their lives, take that away and their self esteem and self worth are not held onto for long, women live longer for a reason, and that is that they have a value system that men do not, they have a self esteem based on being mothers, as well as being workers, as well as many other ideas, and are more sociable, and cope with change a lot easier, as a group, than the male of the species, so hard as it is for them, for men this country simply closes the doors on them, when that happens, how can any one expect a real benefit to an increase in working years ? Except for a real risk of an increase in suicide levels among the male population.