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Half million British age 90 or over

Xinhua, September 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

The number of people in Britain aged 90 or over has passed the half million mark for the first time, the Office for National Statistics reported Thursday.

Over 556,200 men and women have joined Queen Elizabeth and her husband Prince Philip in the so-called "nineties club".

The number of people aged 90 and over represents just under one percent of the total population.

ONS figures show that in Britain for every 100 men aged 90 and over in 2015 there were 240 women.

The number of centenarians, people aged 100 and over, living in Britain has also risen by 65 percent over the last decade to 14,570 in 2015.

Of the 14,570 centenarians living in Britain, 850 were estimated to be aged 105 or more, double the number in 2005.

ONS said the main driver of population ageing in recent decades has been improving mortality at all ages, but particularly at older ages.

"Improvements in survival to older ages are due to a combination of factors such as improved medical treatments, housing and living standards, nutrition and changes in the population's smoking habits. In the last 10 years, a big change has been the fall in the percentage of deaths from heart disease," according to the ONS.

ONS said seven in 10 people aged 90 and over are female but ratio of females to males is falling.

In 2015, the vast majority of the population aged 90 and over (71 percent) were female. Women outnumber men at older ages because they have higher life expectancy.

According to the latest National Life Tables for 2013 to 2015, life expectancy at birth is 82.8 years for females compared with 79.1 years for males and at age 85 and over is 6.8 years for females compared to 5.8 years males.

The estimated 14,570 centenarians (people aged 100 or over) living in Britain represents 2.6 percent of the population aged 90 and over and only 0.02 percent of the overall British population.

"However, their numbers have quadrupled from 3,420 in 1985, and in the last decade their numbers have gone up by 5,720, a 65 percent increase, said ONS.

Similarly the numbers of centenarians aged 105 and over has increased markedly in recent years, reaching 850 in 2015 compared to just 130 in 1985. These increases reflect increasing life expectancy at higher ages over the period, the agency added.

The ONS figures show England and Wales have higher proportions of people aged 90 and over population than both Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In 2015, in Wales, there were 938 people aged 90 and over per 100,000 population compared to 867 in England, 741 in Scotland and 672 in Northern Ireland. Endit