Taking a look at data from UNDESA’s World Population Prospects 2019, life expectancy has risen dramatically since the 1960-1965 period. Concerning overall life expectancy at birth, figures stood at 69.86 in 1960-1965, women’s life expectancy was 72.4 years and equivalent figures for men were at 67.0 years. Today therefore, people live more than a decade longer than 60 years ago.
As briefly mentioned above, women have a greater life expectancy than men. This gap is a worldwide phenomenon, indicating that gender-specific characteristics, biological as well as behavioural, social and life circumstances, have an influence. Life expectancy also varies significantly between EU Member States today. Women born in the 1960-1965 period started out with approximately 72 years of life expectancy in all EU Member States.
Life expectancy is expected to grow further. According to Eurostat, it is projected that there will be close to half a million people aged 100 years or older in the EU-27 by 2050 . UNDESA data suggest that life expectancy in the EU-27 will exceed 85 years during the 2045-2050 period and 90 years during the 2095-2100 period.
While the indicator of life expectancy measures the purely quantitative length of life, the indicator of healthy life years (also called disability-free life expectancy) estimates the years spent in a healthy state. In 2019, the number of healthy life years at birth was estimated at 64.6 years on average in the EU-27, amounting to 65.1 years for women and 64.2 years for men, representing about 77.5 % and 81.8 % of the total life expectancy for women and men. Compared to 2004, when first data were available, this means an increase of 1.7 years on average, 1.4 years for women and 2.2 years for men.
Be the first to write a comment.