The number of years people will live with their health in a 'not good' state has decreased for newborns and increased for over 65s, research has found.
The figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) for 2009-11 revealed that at the age of 65, men and women in the UK will live over half their remaining lives free of disability.
Men aged 65 will have a higher proportion (59.3%) of their lives in good health compared to women, who will spend 58.6% of their lives in good health.
However women will live longer with 20.7 years remaining at age 65 compared to men with 18 years left.
Overall healthy life expectancy is 10.7 years at age 65 for men and 12.1 years for women, with an overall increase of 1.3 years between 2000-02 and 2009-11.
Men aged 65 will also have a higher proportion of their lives free from disability at 58.5% of their remaining years compared to women with 53.2%.
Women aged 65 will spend on average 9.7 years of their lives disabled, compared to men with 7.5 years of their lives disabled.
However women will also have more years ahead free from disability with an expected 11 years free from disability ahead at age 65.
For newborns, their life expectancy is 78.4 years for males and 82.4 for females, with males seeing a bigger increase in life expectancy at birth since 2000-02.
