Life expectancy at birth in the EU rose to 81.5 years in 2024, up 0.1 years from 2023.
The figure is above the pre-pandemic level of 81.3 years recorded in 2019, after falling to 80.4 in 2020 and 80.1 in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, Eurostat announced on Friday.
At regional level, the highest life expectancy was recorded in Spain’s Comunidad de Madrid at 85.7 years.
Three other regions reached 85.0 years — Italy’s Provincia Autonoma di Trento and Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano/Bozen, and Sweden’s capital region of Stockholm.
Among the five EU regions with the lowest life expectancy at birth, three were in Bulgaria: Severozapaden (73.9 years), Severen tsentralen (74.9 years) and Severoiztochen (75.4 years).
The other two were Mayotte in France (74.5 years) and Észak-Magyarország in Hungary (75.1 years).
Women outlive men across the EU
Women in the EU were expected to live 84.1 years in 2024, compared with 78.9 years for men, Eurostat said.
That means women were expected to live 5.2 years longer than men, according to the data.
The gender gap was widest in Latvia, where women were expected to live 9.8 years longer than men, followed by Lithuania (8.6 years) and Estonia (8.4 years).
The smallest gaps were recorded in the Netherlands (2.8 years), Sweden (3.1 years) and Ireland (3.4 years).
