Luxembourg is at the forefront of life expectancy compared with other countries of the European Union, according to a mortality report published by STATEC on Tuesday 24 November 2015.
The report, entitled 'Regards sur la Mortalité', found that in 2013 the average life expectancy at birth for women was 84.8 years and 80.2 years for men. However, this represents more of an increase in the last thirty years for men, at 10.2 years, than women, at 8.1 years. STATEC reported that this gender gap is decreasing over time, with the life expectancy rising 2.6 years for men and 2.1 years for women just in the last seven years.
This rise in life expectancy was attributed to a number of factors, including medical advances, healthier lifestyles and better working conditions. It was found that the lifestyle of women is moving closer and closer to that of men in terms of professional activity and tobacco and alcohol consumption. The increase of 7.6 years for the life expectancy of men was also reported to be due to older age groups, with an increase of 2.96 years in the last twenty years for men aged between 60 and 79 and of 2.19 years for over-80s, whilst the ages between 0 and 59 only represented 32.2% of this gain.
The 2012/2014 mortality table showed that the probability of dying is higher in the first year of an individual's life than during the rest of their childhood, but this mortality rate is on the decline. Today the risks of dying are lowest between the ages of 1 and 14, with the probability of dying increasing significantly in early adolescence. From the age of 15, the risk of death is higher for men than for women, at between 0.20% and 0.50% for 15-24 year old males compared with 0.19% for women of the same age demographic.
Mortality was also found to be somewhat seasonally-affected, with a higher concentration of deaths in the winter and in spring than in summer and autumn. In the last three years, the number of deaths remained relatively stable at around 3,800 annually, despite the population increasing by 38,105 people between 1 January 2012 and 31 December 2014. The highest recorded age for men from 2012 to 2014 was 110, and 106 for women.
The report found that significant inequalities remain in life expectancy around Europe, with each Member State rarely presenting similar results to homogenous regions. Luxembourg holds one of the highest life expectancy rates in the EU for women, behind Spain at 86.1 years; France at 85.6; Italy at 85.2; and Cyprus at 85.0. The EU average stood at 83.3, with countries such as Lithuania, Hungary, Latvia, Romania and Bulgaria at the bottom of the table with a life expectancy at birth under 80 years. For men, Luxembourg is second only to Italy at 80.3 years. With a life expectancy at birth of under 71 years, Latvia and Lithuania were found below the European average of 77.8 years.
Table by STATEC
