The data also found that the sex ratio at the oldest ages continued to narrow in 2023, with 4.5 women to every man aged 100 years and over in England and Wales, compared with 4.6 in 2022.
Wales has slightly more centenarians than England, according to the data: 26 per 100,000 people, compared with 24 per 100,000 respectively.
There were 551,758 nonagenarians – people aged 90 years and older – living in England and Wales. This is down from more than 600,000 in 2019 but a slight increase of 0.2% from 2022. In 2021, there was an increase of 2.1%.
There were just over twice as many females than males aged 90 years and over in 2023; a gap between males and females that continues to reduce over time, from more than three times the number of females than males aged 90-plus in 2002.
Until the 1940s, centenarians were a rarity. Improved diet, lifestyles and healthcare, and reduced mortality – specifically, mortality after 80 years – caused the number of centenarians to increase steeply from the 1950s.
The return of soldiers after the first world war led to a birth spike in the latter half of 1919, leading to the spike in the number of centenarians since 2020.
