One fifth of Britons predicted to reach 100

The UK government is predicting that nearly 1 in 5 Britons will live to at least the age of 100.

That amounts to almost 10m people, or 17% of the population, based on figures from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP).

Of course, they will not all be in their 11th decade at the same time. These figures are predictions of how many of the people currently living in the UK will actually live past their 100th birthday. This is broken down as follows:

• 3m under 16s
• 5.5m between 16 and 50
• 1.3m aged 51-65
• 875,000 older than 65

In 2066 it is estimated that there will be at least 500,000 centenarians living in the UK, with nearly 8,000 of these being 110 or older.

By contrast there are currently just under 12,000 people in the UK who are 100 or older, and less than a hundred of these are 110 or older.

By 2080 the DWP expects the number of centenarians to reach nearly 630,000.

While it is generally considered to be a good thing to live a long life, it is also the case that as we get older we can expect to require more medical attention while seeing our earning potential drop, if not end.

With the current retirement age of 65, hundreds of thousands of UK citizens could be spending more than one third of their life in retirement. And with increased higher education access keeping young people out of the workforce until they are 20 or older, many people will spend less than half of their life in paid employment.

Commenting on these projections, pensions minister Steve Webb said: "These staggering figures really bring home how important it is to plan ahead for our later lives. Many millions of us will be spending around a third of our lives or more in retirement in the future."

"That's why we are reforming the pension system to make it sustainable for the long term, making sure people can look forward to a decent state pension when they retire, and helping millions save into a workplace pension, many for the first time."

This article was published on Thu 30 December 2010