Charting Retirement is a weekly snapshot of retirement-related data.
We have previously seen how long Canadian women will live in retirement. But how many of them will be able to avoid critical illness? There are 14 classifications of serious or critical illness, such as heart attacks, life-threatening cancers, stroke and Alzheimer’s. The chart below shows that out of 1,000 women, 173, or 17 per cent, will still be alive and in good health at 90. A further 357, or 36 per cent, will have a critical illness at age 90. Only nine out of 1,000 will make it to 100 without contracting a critical illness. It is men’s turn next week.
(Source: CPM Mortality Table with improvements to 2023, CIA critical illness incidence tables, November, 2011, assume half the deaths in a given year are people who got sick in that same year.)
Frederick Vettese is former chief actuary of Morneau Shepell and author of Retirement Income for Life.