Extreme longevity might have peaked, with new government data showing fewer centenarians living in England and Wales.
According to Estimates of the Very Old, a population analysis by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), there were 14,850 people aged 100 or over living in England and Wales in 2023. Among these, an estimated 560 people were aged 105 or older.
This is more than double the number of centenarians in 2002 but a 0.5% decrease compared with 2022, when there were 14,920.
Up to 2021, the post-first world war baby boom ensured sizeable annual increases in the number of centenarians in England and Wales: there were 10,930 in 2018 but 14,370 in 2021.
But as this cohort ages and decreases over time, its impact on the centenarian population reduces. “Aged 103 years in 2023, this group accounted for 9.7% of those aged 100 years and over,” the report noted. “As this cohort ages and decreases in size, the effect on the size of the centenarian population continues to reduce.”
The data also found that the sex ratio at the oldest ages continued to narrow in 2023, with 4.5 women to every man aged 100 years and over in England and Wales, compared with 4.6 in 2022.
Wales has slightly more centenarians than England, according to the data, 26 people per 100,000 population, compared with 24 people per 100,000 in England.
The government body also found 551,758 nonagenarians – people aged 90 years and older – living in England and Wales. This is down from over 600,000 in 2019 but a slight increase of 0.2% from 2022. In 2021, there was an increase of 2.1%.
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There were just over twice as many females than males aged 90 years and over in 2023; a gap between males and females that continues to reduce over time, from more than three times the number of females than males aged 90 years and over in 2002.
Until the 1940s, centenarians were a rarity. But thanks to improved diet, lifestyles and healthcare, and reduction of mortality – specifically, mortality after 80 years – numbers of centenarians began to increase steeply from the 1950s.
The return of soldiers after the first world war led to a birth spike in the latter half of 1919, leading to the spike in the number of centenarians since 2020.
