EU life expectancy increases again and hits 81.5 years

In 2024, life expectancy at birth in the EU was 81.5 years, indicating a 0.1-year increase from 2023. Life expectancy decreased in 2020 (80.4 years) and 2021 (80.1 years) due to the COVID-19 pandemic but has since then recovered and reached values higher than in 2019 (81.3 years).

This information comes from data on mortality and life expectancy published recently by Eurostat.

Highest life expectancy in Comunidad de Madrid

At regional level, 4 regions reached life expectancy of 85 years or above: the Spanish region of Comunidad de Madrid, with 85.7 years, and the Italian regions of Provincia Autonoma di Trento and Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen and the Swedish capital region of Stockholm, all with 85.0 years.

Conversely, among the 5 EU regions with the lowest life expectancy at birth, 3 were in Bulgaria: Severozapaden (73.9 years), Severen tsentralen (74.9 years), and Severoiztochen (75.4 years). The other 2 were Mayotte in France (74.5 years) and Észak-Magyarország in Hungary (75.1 years).

Source dataset: demo_mlexpec

Women expected to live 5.2 years longer

In 2024, life expectancy at birth for women in the EU reached 84.1 years (up by 0.1 years compared with 2023), while for men it was 78.9 years (+0.2 years). This indicates that women are expected to live 5.2 years longer than men.

This gap varied considerably among EU countries. In Latvia, women were expected to live 9.8 years longer than men, followed by Lithuania (8.6 years) and Estonia (8.4 years). The smallest gender gaps were in the Netherlands (2.8 years), Sweden (3.1 years) and Ireland (3.4 years).

Source dataset: demo_mlexpec