People in the UK are getting “sicker and poorer”, with a gaping health and wealth divide between regions that are only getting worse, research has found.
Economic inactivity because of sickness is at its highest level since records began, with 2.5 million working-age adults inactive due to their health, states the IPPR report titled “Getting better? Health and the UK labour market”
The new data shows sickness is twice as likely to force people out of work in the north-east of England, Wales and Northern Ireland as in London and the south-east. All these areas also have lower-than-average life expectancy and lower-than-average productivity per person, according to the report.
It is Northern Ireland where people are most likely to be not working due to sickness. A total of 10.8% of the Northern Irish population are too ill to work, compared with 4.4% in the south-east. The UK average is 6.1%.
Productivity levels in these places are far below the levels in London, where each person adds an average of £52,239 to the economy a year. This compares with £20,364 in the north-east, where productivity is lowest, and an average of £29,063 across the UK. This gap of more than £30,000 between London and the north-east has risen by £8,000 since 2012.
The north-east also has the lowest healthy life expectancy, at 59 years, compared with 66 years in the south-east, which has the highest healthy life expectancy. Healthy life expectancy is the measure of the number of years that people report they are living in good health. The report finds that Covid-19 has made this regional inequality worse, as Wales, Scotland and every region in the north of England and the Midlands have higher long Covid incidences than the UK average.
Chris Thomas, the head of the commission on health and prosperity at the IPPR and the author of the report, said: "...we are getting sicker and poorer as a country – with deepening health inequalities undermining national prosperity, particularly in the north and the devolved nations."
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