Britain Is Rapidly Becoming a Sick Society
The country’s ability to grow its economy is being threatened by the deteriorating health of its people.
Sirens.
Photographer: Hollie Adams/Getty Images EuropeBritain is becoming a sick society. I don’t mean this merely in a figurative sense, that the country is suffering from an epidemic of depravity and knife crime. (One Old Bailey judge laments that he can’t remember the last time he had to deal with a murder suspect who was more than 20 years old.) I mean it literally.
Sixteen percent of the British labor force — one in six — report that they suffer from long-term health problems. This number has risen by just over a third since 2010, to more than 7 million from 5.2 million, and it shows no sign of reversing, as it has in other European countries. The long-term sick not only experience persistently lower labor-force participation (more than a quarter of economically inactive people are sick), but are also less productive when they do work, gravitating to part-time jobs and working fewer hours.