Sickness and disability remain key reason for over 50's economic inactivity

Around 43.8% of inactive individuals aged 50-64 cited being sick, injured or disabled as the main reason for being economically inactive in the labour market. In 2026, around 585,000 people in this age bracket were economically inactive but were willing to, or would like to, work. This marks an increase of around 13,000 people since 2025.  Of the 585,000, 62.2% pointed to being sick, injured or disabled as the reason for not looking for work, which is down by 3.9 percentage points from 2025. This was followed by ‘other' reasons (21.9%) and ‘looking after home or family' (15.8%) for...