The years 2020 and 2021 significantly disrupted the evolution of the mortality of the European population (and not only), the Covid-19 pandemic brutally halted the almost universal increase in life expectancy at birth established after the Second World War. Romania was no exception, on the contrary, the indicator in 2021 was almost 3 years lower compared to 2019. The National Institute of Statistics has published data on the natural movement of the population in 2022, and now we can assess the changes that have occurred since the Pandemic and the extent to which these changes are part of the continuation of the trends of the terrible SARS-CoV-2 infection or describe new developments. We will not be able to make comparisons within the EU for 2022, as Eurostat has not yet published the data. Surprisingly, the practice was to publish annual population balances in member countries on July 11, World Population Day. There are other changes in the presentation of demographic data, for example, too concise analyzes of demographic phenomena or the absence of annual reports on the demographic situation in the European Union. We will therefore compare 2019 data from EU countries not affected by the pandemic, but in many situations we will also add 2022 data for Romania, providing a comparative basis for 2019-2022. The evolution of life expectancy at birth will be privileged, from different points of view, but life expectancy at age 65 will not be omitted in the context of discussions about the retirement age, nor will mortality data from some causes of death behind changes in life expectancy life at birth.

Romanian terminology when we talk about mortality and life expectancy tables is borrowed from French demographic literature: mortality tables– mortality table, espérance de vie à la naissance (à l’âge x) – life expectancy at birth (at age x), survived à l’age x-survived at the age of x. There are terms in English literature life table, life expectancy at birth and survived at the age of x. […]

Where does Romania rank among EU-27 countries in terms of life expectancy at birth? Comparisons with data for 2020 and 2021 should be avoided. The pandemic has had a very different impact on life expectancy in EU countries due to the specificities of national anti-pandemic strategies and programs, due to the state and general effectiveness of health care, and due to the health behavior and culture of the population.

I said that Eurostat has not yet published the data for 2022. Comparing the 2019 data to a strongly time-varying phenomenon remains the only option, and Figure 3 provides a test of the data. Romania’s position is one we have known for a long time, the new element is an even wider gap compared to most countries. This is the result of stagnation in the level of the indicator after 2013 in men and little progress in women. In fact, the large differences we see, especially among men, reflect large gaps in the level of economic, social, cultural development, health care and the state of public health in EU countries.

Things should be treated and evaluated in a historical dimension. The gaps widened throughout the 20th century. The 50 years of the totalitarian regime was a brake on the country’s modernization and progress, and the negative consequences were not only accumulated and consolidated during those 50 years, but can still be found in many realities of the country today. One of them is the poor health of a large part of the adult and elderly population today, which carries the accumulation and negative conditions from the period before 1990, especially among the elderly population. In the next section, the history of the evolution of life expectancy under the old regime is comparatively studied.

The data in Figure 3 allow us to make several other observations. If the generally higher indicators of the female population are not surprising, the male excess mortality is present in all European populations. There is a certain uniformity in life expectancy in women that we do not find in men.

Stagnation in the growth of life expectancy for men and moderate progress for women, on the one hand, and higher male mortality from Covid-19 in particular in 2020, on the other hand, have significantly widened the gap between life expectancy at birth for women and men (Fig. 4), from 6.9 years in 2013 to 7.4 years in 2019 and a peak of 7.8 years in 2020. Compensating, the gap narrowed in 2021, but figures for 2022 show a resumption of growth. The gap in our country is one of the highest among the EU-27 countries (Fig. 5), almost all of which are in former communist countries. It seems hard to understand how in 2019 the difference between life expectancy for women and men in EU countries varies from 3 to 10 years. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro