Life expectancy in Germany has decreased by more than half a year since the beginning of the corona pandemic. According to current calculations by the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB), it fell in 2022 for the third year in a row. Life expectancy for men fell from 78.7 to 78.1 years and for women from 83.5 to 82.8 years, as reported by the Institute in Wiesbaden.
According to the BiB, there are considerable regional differences. Life expectancy for men in Saarland and Saxony-Anhalt in 2022 was more than a year below the 2019 value. Saxony-Anhalt also stood out for women – life expectancy there was almost a year below the 2019 values. It was cheaper the situation for men in Baden-Württemberg, Schleswig-Holstein and Saxony developed. Life expectancy there was only a maximum of half a year below the value before the pandemic.
According to the BiB, the differences between western and eastern German federal states have become somewhat equal again. In 2021, life expectancy in Thuringia, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt and Brandenburg had fallen well below the pre-pandemic level. “At the time, these federal states were affected by a particularly drastic increase in mortality due to Corona,” explained Pavel Grigoriev, head of the mortality research group at the BiB. In 2022, these four federal states were again able to record significant increases in life expectancy, especially among men.
The situation is different in many western German federal states: Here life expectancy fell the most between 2021 and 2022. According to BiB, this was mainly due to the massive spread of the pandemic at the time. The flu epidemic at the end of 2022 also contributed to the decline in life expectancy in 2022.
