Wiesbaden – In Germany, the average life expectancy at birth in 2022 was 82.9 years for women and 78.2 years for men. As the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) also reports, life expectancy at birth has decreased significantly in the three years of the corona pandemic compared to the last year before the pandemic, 2019: by 0.6 years for both men and women. There was also a further decrease for women compared to the previous year (-0.2 years), while life expectancy at birth for men in 2022 remained almost constant compared to 2021. Life expectancy at birth summarizes mortality over all age years in one value. This is independent of the age structure and the size of the population. Life expectancy is therefore particularly well suited for comparisons over time. It is not a prognosis for newborns today, but a representation of the current survival conditions in the entire age range.
In East Germany, life expectancy has already risen again in 2022
In East Germany, life expectancy at birth increased again in 2022 after sharp declines in the two previous years – for women by 0.2 years and for men even by 0.6 years compared to 2021. Compared to 2019, life expectancy at birth in East Germany was 0.7 years lower for women and 0.8 years for men, despite the recent increase in 2022. In contrast to eastern Germany, life expectancy at birth continued to decrease in western Germany in 2022. The difference to 2019 in the west German federal states over the entire period was smaller than in east Germany and in 2022 – as in Germany as a whole – was 0.6 years for both sexes.
About 140,000 to 200,000 additional deaths in the three 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 more than 20 years. At the same time, however, life expectancy before the start of the corona pandemic was tending to increase. The effect of increasing life expectancy thus weakened the aging effect. With both effects acting at the same time, the number of deaths before the start of the pandemic rose by an average of 1 to 2% per year. In each of the three years of the pandemic, the annual increases exceeded this level. From 2020 to 2022 there were around 140,000 to 200,000 additional deaths compared to the previous average development in Germany. A total of around 164,000 COVID-19 deaths were reported to the Robert Koch Institute in these three years. Measures and changes in behavior in the course of the pandemic may have ensured that fewer deaths were caused by other infectious diseases such as the flu, especially in 2020 and 2021. In 2022, the extraordinarily warm summer and a strong flu epidemic at the end of the year also had a visible impact on the number of deaths over the course of the year.
Methodical notes:
The results mentioned here come from so-called period mortality tables. For the calculation, the number of deaths in a certain period (e.g. in 2022) is placed in relation to the population in the individual years of age. In a table separated by gender, mortality tables then show how many people from a starting population survive and die up to a certain age. Based on this information, the mortality table provides information about the gender-specific average life expectancy in the individual years of age. Period mortality tables are a snapshot of the mortality ratios of the entire population for the period under consideration. The calculation does not contain any assumptions as to how life expectancy will develop in the future. The life expectancy at birth therefore indicates how long newborns would live on average based on the current survival conditions. To analyze the corona effects in the years of the pandemic, special calculations were carried out for individual years. The graphic representation of the changes in this press release is based on an illustration in the article “Life expectancy changes since COVID-19” by Schöley and others in the scientific journal Nature.
Complete mortality tables with all detailed information are provided by the official statistics for three-year periods as standard in order to compensate for the usual fluctuations between individual years to a certain extent. These mortality tables form the basis for the calculation of so-called present insurance values and for legal transactions and tax purposes. They are also calculated for the federal states.
For the subdivision into western and eastern Germany, Berlin is not included in any of the parts of the state in all current mortality tables.
Additional Information:
The results for the 2020/2022 mortality table for Germany and the federal states were also published on July 25, 2023. In the statistical report on these mortality tables, the time series for individual calendar years from 2011 onwards are also available for Germany as well as western and eastern Germany. An article on the long-term development of life expectancy based on the three-year tables can be found on the “Deaths and life expectancy” topic page.