EU life expectancy: six months increase between 2021 and 2022

Brussels – People in the EU are living longer. Since one is born, life expectancy records an increase of exactly half a year.  According to the latest Eurostat data, it grew that much between 2021 and 2022. The result: on average, a European citizen can expect to reach over 80 years of age. The European Statistical Institute points out that this figure represents an increase in average life expectancy on the upswing from 2019 values, when being born in the EU meant being able to expect 80 years and six months at least of existence. The advent of the COVID-19 pandemic had called this into question, reducing life expectancy, which is now on the rise. The situation varies from member state to member state and even more from region to region. Eurostat tries to estimate on a regional basis: it emerges that at the end of 2022, the European Union region with the highest life expectancy at birth is the Comunidad de Madrid (Spain, 85.2 years), followed by the Autonomous Province of Trento in Italy (84.4 years), Ile de France in France (84.1 years), Stockholm in Sweden ( 84.0 years) and Comunidad Foral de Navarra in Spain (83.9 years).

At the other end of this scale are four Bulgarian regions, all of which have the lowest rate of life expectancy: Severozapaden (72.3 years), Severen Tsentralen (73.2 years), Yugoiztochen (73.7 years), Severoiztochen (74.1 years).

Italy as a whole confirms itself as a country where the European average of 80 years and six months is exceeded. In every region of the country, a life expectancy cycle of at least 81 years is expected. In Campania, the Italian region where Eurostat records the lowest life expectancy index, it records 81.1 years.

Breaking down the aggregate figure and making a gender distinction shows that women tend to live longer than men. At the end of 2022, life expectancy at birth for females was 83 years and four months (up about five months from 2021), while for males, it was 77 years and ten months (up about nine months from 2021). This means that in 2022, life expectancy at birth for women in the EU was 5.4 years longer than for men.