In 2019, life expectancy at birth reached 81.3 years but then fell in 2020 to 80.4 (-0.9 years) and in 2021 decreased further (-0.3 years compared with 2020), probably as a result of the sudden increase in mortality because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Life expectancy for women (82.9 years) continued to be higher than for men (77.2 years) in 2021, with both registering further decreases following a larger drop from 2019 to 2020. Compared with 2020, life expectancy for both women and men decreased by 0.3 years.
Between 2002 (the first year for which life expectancy data became available for all EU members) and 2021, life expectancy at birth in the EU increased by 2.5 years, from 77.6 to 80.1 years; the increase was 2.0 years for women and 2.9 years for men.
At the country level, the highest life expectancy at birth was recorded in Spain (83.3 years), Sweden (83.1 years), Luxembourg and Italy (both 82.7 years), while the lowest was in Bulgaria (71.4 years), Romania (72.8 years) and Latvia (73.1 years).
