Record longevity for EU women: 83 years on average vs. 78 for men

Brussels – Women hold the longevity record in Europe. It is confirmed by Eurostat that, in all regions of the EU, the female gender has a higher life expectancy: 83.3 years in 2022 versus 77.9 years for men.

Spain’s absolute land of longevity, with three provinces topping the list for the highest life expectancy for women. The leader is the province of the capital, Madrid, with an expectancy of 87.7 years, followed closely by the communities of Navarre and Castile and Leon.

Madrid also registers the highest life expectancy for men, with 82.4 years compared to 81 for the other two leaders, with which it stands squarely as the “longest-lived” EU region. However, the highest figure for men is recorded for Lichtenstein, one of the European Economic Area states included in the research, which comes in at up to 83 years.

In contrast, Bulgaria records the worst data for female longevity within Europe, with 76.4 years. The lowest actually recorded is in the Mayotte Archipelago, which is technically a French department and region despite being in the Indian Ocean and is recorded by Eurostat data.

For men, as already mentioned, Madrid leads the way. Italy and Sweden also hold their own, with the autonomous province of Trento and the capital Stockholm recording 82.3 years. Eastern Europe does not record high values for male life expectancy, with two Bulgarian provinces among the worst and Latvia with values between 68 and 69 years.

It follows that there are significant differences between genders, with the differential in some cases being substantial. One of the examples, among the Baltics, is Latvia, with as many as ten years more life expectancy for women than men. Very small differences for Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, and the Netherlands. Mayotte returns to the rankings, but with the lowest differential, 0.4 years more for women.

Also to be analyzed are the healthy life years, for which Eurostat provides other interesting data. The average falls for both genders to 62.6 years. Although numerically the average for men is lower, 80 per cent of men’s life expectancy (compared to 75 per cent for women) tends to be without activity limitations, that is, without having disabling problems.

Among EU countries, Malta has the highest number of healthy life years at birth: in 2022, 70.3 years for women and 70.1 for men.

The worst for women are Denmark, Latvia, and the Netherlands, with the average number of years lived in good health around 55. Latvia also stands out for men with the lowest figure, along with Slovakia and Denmark. Sweden and Italy also record positive numbers for men in this indicator, averaging around 67 years.