It's official: move to the countryside and you live longer. Men in rural areas on average can expect to celebrate their 78th birthday — two years longer than those in the city — while women will pass 82, almost a year and a half more than their urban peers, new figures show.
The U.K. Office for National Statistics, which looked at Britain in the seven years until 2007, examined whether a “rural idyll” populated by older, wealthy migrants from the cities had demonstrable health benefits compared with the life of their urban peers, living in more crowded, less green spaces and served by more pressured public services.
The result was unequivocal. Life expectancy at birth, according to the research, “improved with increasing ‘rurality' and those born in village and dispersed areas could expect to live longer than those in town and fringe areas. Even the poorest people fared better in the countryside. Rural poor men lived for a year longer than their urban peers.” Experts said there were three reasons for this trend: there is less poverty in rural areas; selective migration has created a belt of commuter villages; and the demonstrable benefits of a greener life.
Danny Dorling, professor of geography at Sheffield University, England, said Britain was dividing into a class of successful people, ones who “get promoted, have marriages that last and are in good health anyway and can leave the cities for a life in the country, and another class who are not so lucky. If you get divorced or suffer bad health, you are not going to be able to afford a good life with a bijou cottage in the country. ” The figures show living in the country closes the life-expectancy gap between rich and poor. In cities, better-off men live eight years longer; in rural areas the gap is just over five and half years.
Britain is still an urban nation: about four-fifths of the population live in cities and towns. However, the increase in life expectancy masks a widening population gap. While inner London is getting younger, rural areas are ageing rapidly, with repercussions in the terms of the need for doctors, post offices, schools and transport.
Data collected by the Commission for Rural Communities shows that there are three rural areas where the population of over-85s exceeded five per cent.
Porlock, in Somerset, western England, has the most elderly population. More than 40 per cent of residents are old enough to collect their pensions.
“This research backs up what we have long said but the real problem for the countryside is the flight of young people who are unable to buy houses in the villages that they grew up in,” said Nicola Lloyd, executive director of the commission.
There have been repeated calls for affordable housing in the countryside where young people are priced out of the market by older, wealthier migrants. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2010
(Randeep Ramesh is social affairs editor of the Guardian)
