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 UK 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 Guardian, London