EUPHIX (www.euphix.org)

EUPHIX, European Public Health Information, Knowledge & Data Management System
Life expectancy

Remarks

Life expectancy at birth for men, in a number of countries, 1995-2003 (Eurostat, 2006)

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

Austria

73.3

73.7

74.1

74.5

74.8

75.1

75.6

74.8

76.0

Belgium

73.4

73.8

74.1

74.3

74.4

74.6

74.9

75.1

75.4

Cyprus

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

77.0

Czech Republic

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

72.1

-

Denmark

72.7

73.0

73.6

73.9

74.2

74.5

74.7

74.8

74.9

Finland

72.8

73.0

73.4

73.5

73.8

74.2

74.6

74.9

75.1

France

73.9

74.1

74.6

74.8

75.0

75.3

75.5

75.8

75.8

Germany

73.3

73.6

74.0

74.5

74.7

75.0

75.6

75.4

75.5

Greece

75.0

75.1

75.6

75.4

75.5

75.5

75.4

75.4

75.4

Hungary

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

68.4

Ireland

72.9

73.1

73.3

73.4

73.4

73.9

74.7

75.2

74.9

Italy

74.9

75.3

75.7

75.7

76.1

76.6

76.7

76.8

76.9

Malta

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

75.9

-

Netherlands

74.6

74.7

75.2

75.2

75.3

75.5

75.8

76.0

76.1

Norway

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

77.0

Poland

-

68.1

-

-

-

-

-

70.4

-

Portugal

71.6

71.4

72.0

72.2

72.6

73.2

73.5

73.8

74.0

Spain

74.3

74.4

75.0

75.1

75.1

75.7

75.6

75.8

77.2

Sweden

76.2

76.5

76.7

76.9

77.1

77.4

77.6

77.7

77.9

United Kingdom

74.0

74.3

74.7

74.8

75.0

75.5

75.5

75.9

76.2

EU-15

73.9

74.2

74.6

74.6

74.9

75.5

75.7

75.8

75.8

- : no data available

Remarks

Life expectancy is the number of years that a person can expect to live on average in a given population. It is a commonly used summary measure based on death rates of the population in a given year. Life expectancy is usually reported as life expectancy at birth although other base years are also used.

Mortality rates by age have been recalculated by Eurostat to the same definition, the age reached during the year of the event. This permits rates to be recombined by generation. For further information on the methodology used by Eurostat see Calot & Sardon, 2004. The same applies for the calculation of life expectancies by sex and age.

Different organisations (e.g. WHO, Eurostat and OECD) use slightly different approaches to estimating life expectancy, which explains why indicators of life expectancy may differ between different databases.