Canadians are indeed living longer, but anyone planning to enjoy their retirement years may be more interested in knowing how many years can they expect to live disability-free. The chart shows the trends for Canadian women, a group I chose randomly, at age 65. Healthy life expectancy was about 15 years as of 2009/10 and didn’t improve by 2015. It had, however, risen from 13.3 in 1994/95.
(Source: Statistics Canada)
Frederick Vettese is former chief actuary of Morneau Shepell and author of Retirement Income for Life.