The excess mortality associated with the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic led to a reduction in life expectancy at birth of over one year of life in 2020 (82.1 years compared to 83.2 in 2019), only partially recovered in 2021 (82.5 years) and in 2022 (82.6). In 2022, the gender gap returns to the pre-pandemic level (4.3 years), after widening in the previous two years. This is what Istat points out in the tenth edition of the Report on Equitable and Sustainable Welfare (Bes).
The territorial analysis – reads the Report – highlights how in 2022 no region returned to the expected average life expectancy levels of 2019; only a few have largely recovered the years of life lost during the two-year period of the pandemic. Overall, the changes in life expectancy recorded between 2020 and 2022 change very little the geography of expected average life, consolidating the well-known territorial inequalities which see Campania with the lowest life expectancy at birth (80.9 years). , almost three years less than in Trento (84.0 years).
And again: in 2022, life expectancy in good health is estimated at 60.1 years. The trend of this indicator – explains Istat – marked a breaking point after the pandemic due to the opposite trends of the two components of the indicator (life expectancy and prevalence of perceived good health), registering both in 2020 and in 2021 values higher than in 2019 (it was equal to 58.6 years). The trend is due to the peak increase in the share of people who had positively assessed their health conditions in the context of the pandemic. The gender gap remains in favor of men, with more than 2 years of difference (61.2 and 59.1 respectively for men and women).
