Life expectancy in Western Europe is increasingly diverging, a new study published in “Nature Communications” by the German Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) and the French Institute for Demographic Studies (INED) shows.
Since the mid‑2000s the gap between Western European regions with high life expectancy and those where growth has stalled has widened. From 1992 to 2005 the average life expectancy in the region rose rapidly-by about 3½ months each year for men and 2½ months for women. After 2005 the rate of improvement slowed markedly. In 2018 and 2019 the yearly gains had dropped to roughly two months for men and one month for women.
Regions with lower life expectancy experienced even smaller increases. “The key factor is the mortality trend among people aged 55 to 74” says Pavel Grigoriev, head of the research group at BiB and one of the study’s co‑authors. “In some areas mortality in this age group stalled or even rose again. That is a very worrying development because many of these individuals are still in the prime of their lives and in the workforce”.
In Germany the regional life expectancy was fairly similar between 1990 and 2005. Since then progress has slowed in all regions. Apart from Eastern Germany, several northern and western areas also showed unfavorable trends, particularly among women due to higher tobacco use. “No German region ranks within the top ten percent of all Western European regions in terms of life expectancy” concludes Sebastian Klüsener from BiB._
