The mortality resulting from the covid-19 epidemic slowed the progressive increase in life expectancy at birth in Spain and reduced it in 2020 to 82.2 years (79.5 in men and 85 in women), which is 1.5 years less than the previous year, with Madrid being the most affected by this decrease and the Canary Islands the least, with only 0.1 years of loss.
According to a report by the Ministry of Health, which analyzes the evolution of data from 2006 to 2020, children born in that last year in the Canary Islands have a life expectancy of 83.3 years, 1.1 more than the average life expectancy for Spain as a whole.
In the fifteen-year period analyzed, the Canary Islands appears as the community where life expectancy at birth grew the most, specifically by 3.7 years, triple what it did in the rest of the country (1.2 years), according to the report's figures for the islands released by the Ministry of Health.
In another of the report's parameters, which indicates how many years on average those who are now 65 will live, the Canary Islands appears in second position, with an additional life expectancy of 21.7 years, only surpassed by Galicia, with 21.9 years.
As for the years of healthy life expectancy from the age of 65, the archipelago is situated at 18.76 years, almost a year (0.84) above the national average, which is 17.92 years.
The data confirms Spain as one of the countries with the highest figures despite the blow dealt by the first year of the pandemic.
Until that year, the evolution of life expectancy was favorable, so that from 2006 to 2019 it increased by 2.8 years (3.2 in men and 2.2 in women); from then on, it has decreased by 1.5 years (1.4 years in men and 1.5 years in women) and has stood at 82.2 years (79.5 men and 85 women).
Impact of the first and second waves of covid
The impact of covid was greater in the first wave than in the second: life expectancy at birth in the first semester and in the second semester decreased by 1.6 and 1.3 years, respectively, compared to the same semesters of 2019.
This evolution has been observed not only in men and women, but also in all communities, although Madrid suffered the greatest fall (of up to 3.6 years to 82.1), while in the Canary Islands it only decreased by 0.1 years and reached 83.3 years.
Before the pandemic broke out, the difference in life expectancy at birth between women and men was 5.7 years, almost a year less than in 2006 (when it was 6.6); this gap narrowed even further in 2020 to 5.5 years.
Meanwhile, life expectancy at 65 also fell by 1.5 years, so that it stood at 20.4 years (18.3 in men and 22.8 in women), which slowed the increase experienced from 2006 to 2019, when it grew by 1.9 years.
The decrease was similar in men (1.4) and in women (1.5), although the difference between the two sexes remained stable at 4 years; by autonomous communities, it ranged from 18.6 in Ceuta and Melilla to 21.9 in Galicia.
Meanwhile, years of healthy life at birth reached 78.7 in 2020 (76.8 in men and 80.6 in women), which represents 95.7% of the years of life expectancy lived without limitation.
Again, from 2006 to 2019 there had been an increase of 2.6 years (3.5 in men and 1.7 in women), but in 2020 they decreased by 1.2 years (1.2 in men and 1.1 in women). On the contrary, the years that women expected to live longer than men from birth remained, 3.8 years.
At 65 years it was 17.9 (16.6 in men and 19.1 in women), which represents 88%, although it is 1.2 years less of healthy life at this age than a year before. What women expected of healthier life than men continued to be 2.5 years, a difference very similar to that of 2019.
