Don’t eat the haggis

Statistics about life expectancy, by region of the UK, have just been published by the ONS. They show some startling variations.

If you are fortunate enough to be born in Kensington and Chelsea (a wealthy part of London) then your life expectancy, at birth, is 82.2 years. If you have the misfortune to enter the world in Glasgow (A city in Scotland) this drops to below 70 years.

Obviously, this difference in life expectancy is also reflected in the period of ‘healthy life expectancy’. So, from a marketer’s point of view, there will be up to a 10 years difference in the period when people will remain active consumers between Glasgow and the wealthy areas of London.

The situation is starker than these numbers suggest since some parts of Glasgow are very wealthy and will have similar levels of life expectancy as any part of London. This means other parts of the city must life expectancy in the 60-65 year band. Frightening. Dick Stroud