Men in least deprived areas of England are also living almost 10 years longer than those in most deprived

The life expectancy of women in the poorest parts of England has fallen by three months, while that of women in the wealthiest areas rose by almost as much, new figures show.

There was a drop of 98 days in life expectancy at birth among women in the most deprived areas between 2012-14 and 2015-17, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Life expectancy for women in the least deprived areas rose by almost 84 days, representing a divergence of around half a year in the length of the lives of the poorest and wealthiest women.

Overall, life expectancy at birth between 2015 and 2017 for women living in the most deprived areas of England was 78.7 years, compared with 86.2 years for those in the least deprived areas – a gap of around seven and a half years.

Among men, life expectancy for those in the most deprived parts of England was 74 years, compared with 83.3 years in the least deprived areas – a gap of nearly 10 years. The discrepancy between men in the richest and poorest areas had widened by about three months, but this was driven by a faster rise in life expectancy for the wealthy, while figures remained flat or fell slightly for the most impoverished.

Widening inequality, austerity-fuelled cuts to health and social care, increasing job insecurity, access to good food and hunger could all be playing a role in the increasing differences in life expectancy, suggested Faiza Shaheen, the director of the Class thinktank.

“For a long time, of course, growing life expectancy has been a sign of society progressing, so if that’s reversing, and we have seen this for the last few years now, then we have got some serious questions to ask ourselves about what progress looks like,” Shaheen said. “One hundred days is a lot. A lot of people would love to have just one more day with their loved ones.”

Vivienne Hayes, the chief executive of the Women’s Resource Centre, said the figures were no surprise given the cumulative impact of a decade of relentless austerity. It had been borne by women in general, she said, but had hit the poorest women in particular. “We’re just piling burden after burden on them and, of course, that has to have an impact on health and wellbeing,” she said, pointing to research showing that women had in effect paid for 86% of the cost of cutbacks.

“All policymaking, including Treasury decisions, should be made through a gendered lens,” Hayes said. “They say they do equality and impact assessments on their policies but they are either not doing them very well or they are doing them and saying: ‘We know that’s going to be shit for women, but we don’t give a fuck.’ They need to robustly implement their own Equalities Acts and stop punishing us.

“Generally speaking, women are the backbone of families and communities. They do all the unpaid care, they are often the ones who keep the wider family together, and if you are going to undermine women to the point of killing them then what’s the impact on wider society?”

Ben Humberstone, the ONS deputy director for health analysis and life events, said analysis of mortality had shown that life expectancy in the UK had stopped improving at the rate expected before 2011. “We will be carrying out further work to analyse the factors contributing to this trend, including the impact of deprivation,” he said.