NewsWire: 5/31/22
- In 2021, life expectancy declined in around half of EU member states. Since the pandemic began, some countries have lost as much as four years of life expectancy. (Eurostat)
- NH: Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, just released 2021 preliminary life expectancy data for EU member states. First, let’s look at how individual countries rank against each other. Then let’s look at how life expectancy has changed from pre-pandemic readings.
- No surprise, the countries with the highest life expectancies were in Scandinavia and Western Europe. And the countries with the lowest life expectancies were in Eastern Europe. This is the same pattern we saw before the pandemic. But now there is a larger difference between the highest and lowest nations (9.2 years vs. 13.0 years).
- Only three countries experienced increases from 2019 (pre-pandemic) to 2021: Norway (+0.2), Liechtenstein (+0.1), and Luxembourg (+0.1). Sweden, Iceland, Switzerland, and Malta recorded no change. The biggest loser was Bulgaria (-3.7), followed by Slovakia (-3.0), Romania (-2.7), Poland (-2.4), and Latvia (-2.3). These are massive drops to see in just two years.
- Changes in life expectancy roughly track success in dealing with Covid-19. For example: Norway has recorded 566 Covid-19 deaths per million people, and Bulgaria has reported a whopping 5,381. Why the difference? The countries that fared better are wealthy and spend a lot on healthcare. Many of these countries have cold climates and have a low population density. Two of them, Iceland and Malta, are islands and can easily monitor entrants. In general, the countries that fared the worse are a lot poorer and have a weak public-health infrastructure. (See “Nordic Countries Avoid Pandemic Baby Bust.”)
- So how does the US compare? In 2019, US life expectancy was 78.8 years, lower than the Western European average but higher than the Eastern Europe average. (See “Life Expectancy: America Falling Further Behind Western Europe.”)
- But in 2021, US life expectancy was 76.6, a -2.2 year decline from 2019. Only five other EU countries experienced larger declines, and they were mostly in Eastern Europe. Of course, the United States is wealthier, less densely populated, and spends a lot more on healthcare than Europe. So we are indeed exceptional--only not in a good way.
| To view and search all NewsWires, reports, videos, and podcasts, visit Demography World. For help making full use of our archives, see this short tutorial. |
