The average life expectancy in 2021 was 83.2 years for newborn girls and 78.2 years for newborn boys. As the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports, the life expectancy of newborns has decreased significantly compared to the last pre-pandemic year of 2019: by 0.6 years for boys and 0.4 years for girls.
The main reason for this development is the exceptionally high number of deaths during the corona waves. The development of life expectancy shows changes in mortality that are independent of age structure. It is therefore particularly suitable for time comparisons.
Decline in life expectancy is particularly noticeable in East Germany
In eastern Germany, the decline in life expectancy at birth from 2019 to 2021 was particularly noticeable. For boys this value decreased by 1.3 years and for girls by 0.9 years. In West Germany the decline was 0.4 years for boys and 0.3 years for girls.
From the second wave onwards, the eastern German federal states were particularly hard hit by the pandemic. Life expectancy at birth for boys is now 76.4 years in eastern and 78.6 years in western Germany - for girls 82.7 years in the east and 83.3 years in the west.
Around 70,000 to 100,000 additional deaths in the first two years of the pandemic
Due to the increasing proportion of older people in the population, an annual increase in the number of deaths in Germany has been expected for around 20 years. At the same time, however, life expectancy tended to increase before the start of the corona pandemic. The effect of increasing life expectancy thus weakened the aging effect. When both effects worked simultaneously, the number of deaths rose by an average of 1 to 2% annually before the start of the pandemic.
The increase was already more pronounced in 2020 compared to the last pre-pandemic year of 2019 (+5% to 986,000 deaths). According to the final data now available, the number of deaths in 2021 rose by a further 4% or around 38,000 deaths to a total of 1.02 million. Based on 2019, a number of deaths of 960,000 to 980,000 would have been expected for 2021, i.e. an increase of 2 to 4%. In fact, the number of deaths increased by 9% from 2019 to 2021.
Based on the two years 2020 and 2021, there were around 70,000 to 100,000 additional deaths. Almost 115,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported at the Robert Koch Institute in these two years. Measures and behavioral changes in the wake of the pandemic may also have ensured that fewer deaths were caused by other infectious diseases such as influenza in 2020 and 2021.
Methodological notes:
The results mentioned here come from so-called period life tables. For the calculation, the number of people who died in a certain period of time (for example in 2021) is compared to the population in the individual age years. In a table separated by gender, life tables then show how many people from a starting population survive and die up to a certain age. Based on this information, the life table provides information about the gender-specific average life expectancy in the individual years. Period life tables are a snapshot of the mortality conditions of the entire population for the period under consideration. The calculation does not contain any assumptions about how life expectancy will develop in the future. The life expectancy of newborns indicates how long they would live on average based on current survival conditions. To analyze the Corona effects in 2020 and 2021, special calculations were carried out for individual years. Complete mortality tables with all detailed information are provided by official statistics as standard for three-year periods in order to compensate for normal fluctuations between individual years to a certain extent. These mortality tables form the basis for calculating so-called insurance cash values and for legal transactions and tax purposes. They are also calculated for the federal states. For the division into West and East Germany, Berlin is not taken into account in any of the parts of the country.
Additional Information:
The results for the 2019/2021 life table for Germany and the federal states were also published on July 26, 2022. In the statistical report for these mortality tables, the time series for individual calendar years from 2011 onwards are also available for Germany as well as West and East Germany. The long-term development of life expectancy is described in this web article based on the three-year tables.
This press release, supplemented if necessary with further information and links on the topic, is published HERE .
Source: Press portal , Destatis
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