Life expectancy : Life expectancy at birth, women, 1995-2003 (table)

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

	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002	2003
Austria	79.9	80.1	80.5	80.8	80.8	81.1	81.5	81.7	81.8
Belgium	80.2	80.5	80.6	80.5	80.8	80.8	81.1	81.1	81.3
Cyprus	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	81.4
Czech Republic	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	78.7	-
Denmark	77.8	78.2	78.4	78.8	79	79.3	79.3	79.5	79.5
Finland	80.2	80.5	80.5	80.8	81	81	81.5	81.5	81.8
France	81.8	82	82.3	82.4	82.5	82.7	82.9	83	82.9
Germany	79.7	79.9	80.3	80.6	80.7	81	81.3	81.2	81.3
Greece	80.3	80.4	80.8	80.4	80.6	80.6	80.7	80.7	80.7
Hungary	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	76.7
Ireland	78.4	78.7	78.6	79	78.8	79.1	79.7	80.3	80.7
Italy	81.3	81.4	81.6	81.8	82.2	82.5	82.8	82.9	82.9
Malta	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	81.2	-
Netherlands	80.4	80.3	80.5	80.6	80.5	80.5	80.7	80.7	80.8
Norway	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	81.9
Poland	-	76.6	-	-	-	-	-	78.7	-
Portugal	78.7	78.8	79	79.3	79.5	80	80.3	80.5	80.5
Spain	81.5	81.7	82	82.1	82.1	82.5	82.9	83.5	83.7
Sweden	81.4	81.5	81.8	81.9	81.9	82	82.1	82.1	82.4
United Kingdom	79.2	79.5	79.6	79.7	79.8	80.2	80.2	80.5	80.7
EU-15	80.4	80.6	80.9	80.9	81.1	81.4	81.6	81.6	81.6

- : 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.