It is quite a nasty article, because she implies most of the official sick are not sick, just a bit sick.
If the average male in Blackpool is dying before they are 54, that suggests to me they are not in a great state of health and they are going to struggle on the Amazon type production line. I suspect sick people are moving to Blackpool as they know they have a limited life and see Blackpool as a slightly more healthier place than central Manchester or Liverpool. A more interesting article is why are men dying at 53 and 54 in Blackpool. In Middlesbrough I would have thought its not a lot better at about age 62.
There is another interesting debate about why are people leaving the workforce before 66 and its not health related. A few years ago I worked out my hourly rate of pay to be a net £7.50/hour and I was experienced professional - I was doing unpaid overtime to help my students. In another senior job it was around £5.40/hour (gig style job working from home on fixed sum completion). After a while you decide why should I do something I was liking less and less, that requires constant training/updating and has responsibilities, for such pay. My contention is that pay has failed to keep up with even low inflation in some professions. Reading on here I would be better off delivering takeaways than some teaching work.
Most people with a disability are not in paid employment, but I know there is still significant discrimination against people with a disability in the workplace e.g. how many employers have more than 2% of the workplace with an official disability? (when nearly 10% of the UK population is disabled). Access to Work scheme is hardly promoted at all by the Government, most employers have not heard of it. Some say its because they want many to claim help. A to W helps make work accessible.
People who have earned money before they are 66 have a perfect right to do what they like with their time and money, we are not at war. The advantage of a money based economy is that is a person's right to do anything legal with their money and time. It only becomes an issue if they are claiming State benefits before they are 66. Maybe many people over 55 are taking their private pensions before 66 and before they die. Some 55-65 year olds are caring for more elderly parents say in their late 80s and 90s. In the 1960s say this did not happen because people were dead before they were 85 (my oldest grand parent died aged 75).
If we turned the clock back to the 1960s you would find the economically active figures were lower than now when it was typical of only one person per household to be working.