Skopje, 16 March 2024 (MIA) — In 2022, the life expectancy at birth in the EU was 80.6 years,  down by 8.4 months from 2019 when EU life expectancy at birth reached 81.3 years (up 3.7 years compared with 2002). However, after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, this indicator declined to 80.4 in 2020 and to 80.1 years in 2021. In 2022, life expectancy at birth in the EU rose slightly but did not reach the 2019 value, according to the latest data on life expectancy published by Eurostat.

The EU regions with the highest life expectancy at birth were the Madrid, Spain (85.2 years), followed by Trento, Italy (84.4 years), Ile de France, France (84.1 years), and Stockholm, Sweden (84.0 years). 

The EU regions with the lowest life expectancy at birth were in Bulgaria (72.3 to 74.1 years, depending on the region) and in Hungary (74.1 years).

For women in the EU, life expectancy at birth stood at 83.3 years in 2022 (up by 0.4 compared with 2021 but down by -0.7 compared with 2019) and for men at 77.9 years (a 0.7 year increase compared with 2021 but a -0.6 decrease compared with 2019), the release says.

Eurostat has not released any 2022 data on North Macedonia's population's life expectancy at birth. According to figures for 2021, Macedonians can expect to live an average of 73.2 years. Life expectancy for women is 75.5, and for men 71.1 years.

In 2021, the life expectancy in North Macedonia dropped by 3 years and 5 months compared to the prepandemic 2018, when people here could expect to live an average of 76.7 years. mr/