Healthy life expectancy is an important indicator of population health, as it signals whether years of life are lived in good health or with some health issues and disabilities (activity limitations). A greater number of healthy life expectancy generally means a healthier workforce, fewer early retirements due to health problems, and reduced or postponed health and long-term care needs.
In 2022, the number of healthy life years (defined as disability-free life expectancy) at birth was 62.8 years for women and 62.4 years for men in the EU (Figure 3.3). The small gender gap in healthy life years (0.4 years) contrasts with the much larger gap in life expectancy (5.4 years). This is because women live a greater proportion of their lives with some disabilities (25% of women’s lives on average in the EU are lived with some disabilities compared to 20% for men).
Among EU countries, Malta recorded the highest number of healthy life years at birth among both women and men in 2022, while Denmark and Latvia had the lowest number of healthy life years among women and these same two countries and the Slovak Republic had the lowest number of healthy life years among men (Eurostat, 2024[1]). However, caution is required in making cross-country comparisons because part of the variations across countries may be explained by variations in the translation and understanding of the survey question used to measure disability in the EU-SILC survey.
There are large inequalities in life expectancy and healthy life expectancy by socio-economic status, for example by education level. A study of 15 European countries based on data from 2010 to 2014 found that disability-free life expectancy among men aged 35 to 80 with lower education (those who have not completed secondary education) was 9 years shorter compared to those with higher education (those with a university or other tertiary education). This gap was slightly smaller among women, but still disability-free life expectancy among women with lower education was 8 years shorter than among those with higher education. This educational gap in disability-free life expectancy among both men and women was particularly large in Estonia, Hungary and Lithuania. The main factor contributing to these educational gaps was low income, but other risk factors such as being overweight or obese and smoking also contributed to these gaps (Valverde et al., 2021[2]).
Looking at trends over time, the data from the Eurostat’s healthy life years indicator suggest that most of the gains in life expectancy in the EU since 2005 have been years free of disability, although breaks in the time series in most EU countries seriously limit the possibility of meaningful trends analysis. The data on healthy life expectancy from WHO also suggest that most of the gains in life expectancy on average across EU countries between 2000 and 2021 have been in “good health” (see Chapter 2 for a more detailed discussion on trends in healthy life expectancy).
As people get older, the proportion of remaining years of life that they can expect to live free of disability decreases. This is particularly the case among women. While women in the EU could expect to live another 21.1 years when they reached age 65 in 2022, less than half of these years was free of activity limitations. For men, the remaining life expectancy at age 65 was about 3.5 years shorter than women (17.7 years), but they could expect to live almost the same number of years free of disability (Figure 3.4).
A range of policies can contribute to increasing healthy life expectancy, including greater efforts to prevent health problems throughout the life course, promoting equal access to care at all ages, and better management of chronic diseases when they occur (see Chapter 2 for further discussion on policies to promote healthy longevity).
