Women in the EU live five and a half years longer than men, figures show
Women in the EU live five and a half years longer than men, according to Eurostat figures on life expectancy in 2022, released today.
Specifically, for women in the EU, life expectancy by at birth was 83.3 years in 2022 (increased by 0.4 compared to 2021 but decreased by -0.7 compared to 2019) and for men to 77.9 years (increased by 0.7 years compared to with 2021 but -0.6 decrease compared to 2019).
In 2022, life expectancy at birth for women in the EU was 5.4 years longer than for men, with variations between EU countries. In Latvia, women live ten years longer than men and 8.7 years more in Estonia and Lithuania. The smallest gender gaps were in the Netherlands (2.9 years), Ireland (3.3 years) and Sweden (3.4 years).
In 2022, life expectancy at birth in the EU was 80.6 years, up by 0.5 years from 2021. Over two decades, since 2002, the highest value was recorded in 2019 when life expectancy at birth reached at 81.3 years (an increase of 3.7 years compared to 2002). However, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this indicator decreased to 80.4 years in 2020 and 80.1 years in 2021. In 2022, life expectancy in the EU increased but did not reach the 2019 value.
The EU region with the highest life expectancy is the Spanish region Comunidad de Madrid (85.2 years), followed by the Provincia Autonoma di Trento in Italy (84.4 years), the Ile de France in France ( 84.1 years), Stockholm in Sweden (84.0 years) and Comunidad Foral de Navarra in Spain (83.9 years).
On the other hand, among the five EU regions with lowest life expectancy at birth, four were in Bulgaria: Severozapaden (72.3 years), Severen tsentralen (73.2 years), Yugoiztochen (73.7 years), Severoiztochen (74.1 years) and one in Hungary, Észak -Magyarország (74.1 years).
In Greece, the highest life expectancy is recorded in Epirus (82.7 years), North Aegean (82.3 years) and Crete (81.7 years ).
