'Alarming' North-South divide in aging population sees Northerners dying younger and in poorer health

The authors explained that this has cost a whopping £10.9bn in lost productivity, almost £600m in NHS costs from poor quality housing and £315m in falls and hip fractures.

The report, put together by 30 academics from six universities including the University of Sheffield, is the first of its kind to investigate these kinds of regional divides in older people.

The authors stress that these inequalities are mainly driven by “insufficient investment” and are actually “totally reversible”, as long as policymakers are bold enough to act.

“This report is the result of our collective alarm and anger at the extensive inequities that divide aging and older people in the North from their counterparts in the South,” Emeritus Professor Alan Walker, from the University of Sheffield’s Healthy Lifespan Institute, said.

“It paints an alarming picture of how inequality has eaten away at the quality of life of so many older northerners.

“In almost every aspect we investigated, there is a yawning gap between the North and the South - from their income and health to their housing, social care and sense of isolation.”

The researchers found that elderly people in the South are more likely to retire, while those in the North are more likely to leave their jobs due to ill health.

In the 10 years from 2012 to 2022, Yorkshire and the Humber saw the rate of poverty among people aged 65 and over rise by 10 per cent.

While older people in the North are more likely to be unhealthy, have cognitive frailty and feel lonely than their peers in the South.

Prof Walker told The Yorkshire Post that in particular former industrial areas are suffering.

“There’s an easy assumption that the urban areas are well catered for and the rural areas aren’t,” he explained.

“But it’s actually in the older industrial heartlands where there was huge disinvestment.

“There wasn’t the reinvestment to create new jobs, to create new industries and enable the phoenix to rise from the ashes.

“I think that is the huge crime over the last 30 or 40 years.

“Those areas have been decimated in terms of their housing, their local infrastructure, their services.

“This gap is hardly new, but the most frustrating thing about it is that it is totally reversible - assuming that policymakers are willing to take decisive steps to address these issues, and provide a better life for our family members, friends, and neighbours as they age.”

Shipley MP Anna Dixon, who launched the report in Westminster yesterday, said she thought the Government was starting to make progress in this area.

“This report lays bare those inequalities in how people are aging,” she said.

“Those have been well documented, with people dying younger, spending longer in poor health.

“This report shows that there are many things that can be done about it, that we don’t have to accept that inequality.

““It is frustrating that we’ve known about this and not enough has happened, but I think we are starting to see action by the Government tipping the balance back towards the North, whether it’s better jobs, investment upgrading homes, investment in the transport infrastructure.”