Migration of the fittest: how healthiest Britons are heading south

By  John Bingham, Social Affairs Editor

The migration of young people with healthy lifestyles to prosperous areas is widening the north-south 'health divide', a study of official figures shows. 

A process similar to the so-called brain drain – in which ambitious young people are drawn away from some areas in search of higher paid jobs in places like London – appears also to be drawing younger, fitter people to move south. 

The Office for National Statistics said the trend could help explain how life expectancy is growing faster in richer areas of the country. 

It said evidence suggests that a little reported form of “selective migration” is under way in which the healthiest people are increasingly concentrated in some areas and the least healthy in others. 

The pattern emerges in a report from the ONS showing stark divides between life expectancy in different parts of the UK. 

Estimates based on current local death rates and other factors suggest that a girl born today in Purbeck in Dorset can expect to live 14 years longer than a boy born in inner city Glasgow. 

Overall life expectancy is rising steadily across the UK with women now projected to live 82.7 years on average – a full year longer than they were only four years earlier. 

Although men are still behind they are narrowing the gap rapidly, gaining almost 17 months in the last four years alone. Average male life expectancy in the UK is now 78.9 years. 

But in a handful of regions in southern and eastern England, male life expectancy has already passed the milestone of 80. 

The coast of Dorset secures the title of longevity capital of Britain, with girls born in the Purbeck area expected to live 86.6 years on average. The neighbouring district of East Dorset now has the highest male life expectancy at birth in the UK at 82.9 years. 

By contrast Glasgow City has the lowest figure for both boys and girls at only 72.6 years and 78.5 years respectively. 

Within England the divide can be traced roughly along the M5 and M6 motorways with girls born in South West England expected to live 5.2 years longer than boys in the North West. 

But the biggest gains in life expectancy in recent years have been in London, which also has one of the youngest and fastest growing populations in the country. 

Average male life expectancy in the capital has leapt by 1.6 years – or more than 19 months – in the last four years alone. 

Female life expectancy in the capital is also up by well over a year in that time. 

The ONS said in a commentary that patterns of north-south migration appeared to be creating what amounts to ghettoes of poorer health in some areas and healthy pockets elsewhere. 

Noting how death rates are higher in northern England than the south, it said: “A number of factors have been identified as plausibly being responsible for the excess mortality, and consequently lower life expectancy, in the northern regions of England. 

“These include socioeconomic, environmental (including working conditions), educational, epigenetic, and lifestyle factors, which may act over the whole life course, and possibly over generations.” 

But it added: “One factor that has received less attention is the selective migration of healthy individuals from poorer health areas into better health areas or vice versa. 

“This type of migration has been shown to play a significant role in increasing or decreasing location-specific illness and mortality rates, which then consequently impact on life expectancy figures.” 

It added: "Evidence from the pattern of interregional migration between 1991 and 2010 also suggests that there might be a selective migration effect at play; there was a higher flow of people to southern regions than out while the reverse was the case in the North East and North West. 

“However, it is not possible to quantify the extent to which better health areas are benefiting from selective migration of healthy people since the health status of these migrants is not known.”  /Telegraph