Relayed with the same chorus by the press at the end of February, the “number of years without disability at age 65” was evaluated at 12.6 years for women and 11.3 years for men” : in other words, let’s reassure ourselves: even with a later retirement age, we would still have a few “beautiful” years to live! So speak the figures of the Drees (Direction of research, studies, evaluation and statistics) for 2021. They have been published at the end of February 2023 and are even better than those of 2020, published at the end of October 2021.
This indicator, which is also called “disability-free life expectancy”, challenges us. We wondered how it was obtained. Answer: statisticians ask different members of a varying number of ordinary households (16,000 in 2020, 17,000 in 2021): “Have you been limited, for at least six months, because of a health problem, in the activities that people usually do? “. They then calculate, on the basis of these declarations, the “number of years without incapacity” for all ages (since incapacities can appear at any age).
More this indicator, which today serves the cause of pension reform, concerns, by definition, only people who have survived to age 65 precisely without incapacityand only in mainland France (the overseas departments and territories have so far been excluded from the survey)! Are therefore not counted a whole group of individuals : all visually impaired or hard of hearing people, people with motor or intellectual disabilities, work accidents, road accident victims, people hospitalized or in institutions, etc.
On the other hand, if we consider disability-free life expectancy at birth, in 2021 it is 65.6 years for men and 67 years for women. (In 2020, it was 63.9 years for men and 65.3 years for women.), which is much less pleasing!
The rich live longer
Moreover, as Pierre Méneton, biologist and public health researcher at the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM) points out in a article published on AOC , “at age 65, 30% of the most disadvantaged people have already died, whereas only 5% of the most advantaged people are” . This is not often emphasized, but it is above all the richest who have every chance of living the oldest. The National Institute of Statistics confirms it “the wealthier you are, the higher the life expectancy at birth. » It is 84.4 years among the wealthiest 5% of men, compared to 71.7 years among the poorest 5%, or 13 years apart! Among women, the gap is less, but still 8 years.
And why ? Because they don’t do the same jobs either! “The average life expectancy at birth of workers is several years lower than that of executives, the difference being up to fifteen years for certain professions such as sewer workers. » also recalls Pierre Méneton.
Thus, “the number of years without disability at age 65” does not at all allow us to measure the full range of socio-professional inequalities. You might even say that she erases them : retirement requires, we are no longer supposed to work. But the health of a former executive has every chance a priori at 65 of being better than that of a former worker, cashier, crane operator or farmer of the same age…
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