In 2023, the average life expectancy for men in Poland will be 74.7 years, while for women it will be 82 years, according to a CSO report released Tuesday.
How long do Poles live: pocovid "rebound" may be the last good news
Published July 31, 2024 08:06
Compared to 2022, life expectancy increased by 1.3 years for men and 0.9 years for women, respectively. Considering 1990, life expectancy was higher - by 8.5 and 6.8 years, respectively. The gap between the life expectancy of both sexes is also narrowing, although in this field we are still at the end of the pile among European countries. For although men's life expectancy is lower than women's in all countries, in Western European countries this difference is not large - unlike in the "new" EU and non-EU countries. Thus, in terms of life expectancy for men, Poland (73.4 years) in 2022 (Eurostat data for that year) ranked only 28th out of 34 European countries, ahead of: the Balkan countries (Bulgaria, Serbia), the Carpathian countries (Hungary, Romania) and the Baltic countries (Latvia and Lithuania). In the case of women, Poland ranks 24th.
CSO data for 2023 shows a continuation of the post-pandemic rebound, which had already begun in 2022. - As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated increased number of deaths, life expectancy in 2020 and 2021, was significantly reduced compared to 2019 by 2.3 years for men and 2.1 years for women. This unfavorable trend was reversed in 2022 and life expectancy increased again (compared to 2021 by 1.7 years for men and 1.4 for women), but for both sexes it was still 0.7 years lower than in 2019. - recall the report's authors. - In 2023, there was another increase in life expectancy (to 74.7 years for men and 82 years for women). Its value was therefore higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the highest ever recorded in Poland.
This is good news, but life expectancy data needs to be analyzed over a longer time frame than one or two years. Meanwhile, a deceleration at best, or even minimal regressions, in the indicators for both sexes - particularly worrisome for men - could already be observed from 2014. This, in turn, means that the Pocovid "rebound" may be the last - in the perspective of a few years - good news, especially since there is no sign of the public health field translating its declarations into concrete decisions, on which, to a great extent, such indicators as life expectancy or the number of years lived in health depend.
Source: CSO
