Health check: How many years can citizens in the EU expect to live healthily for?

In the EU, the number of healthy years of life from birth in 2023 was 63.3 years for women and 62.8 years for men.  

According to the latest Eurostat data, this represented approximately three-quarters and four-fifths of the total life expectancy for women and men respectively.

This data is important for understanding whether extra years of life gained through increased longevity are spent in good or poor health.

However, these figures can be subjective to some extent as they depend on respondents' perceptions of health as well as their social and cultural backgrounds. 

Men in Malta, Italy and Sweden lived the longest healthy lives, while the lowest amount of healthy years was found in Latvia, Estonia and Slovakia.   

Among women, Malta also recorded the highest number of healthy years, followed by Bulgaria and Italy.  

By contrast, women report the smallest amount of healthy life years in Latvia, Denmark, and Finland. 

Overall, life expectancy was 84 years for women and almost 79 years for men across the EU.

This means that a significant portion of people's lives is spent with limits on activity. 

Men generally spend a greater share of their lives without activity limitations compared to women. 

The expected number of healthy years at birth was higher for women than for men in 17 of the EU countries.  

Despite the difference between the sexes generally being small, women in Bulgaria, Slovenia, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia had more than three years of healthier life than men.  

On the other hand, the Netherlands is the only EU country where the gap in favour of men exceeds three years.