Boys’ life expectancy 79.2yrs, girls’ 84.5

The life expectancy at birth was 79.2 years for boys and 84.5 years for girls in 2019, according to the Statistics Finland.

The life expectancy of both boys and girls lengthened by 0.3 years compared with that in 2018. Life expectancy is an age-standardised indicator that describes the level of mortality observed during the calculation period.

In 2019, the difference between sexes in life expectancy at birth was 5.4 years. In the past 30 years, the life expectancy of newly born boys has lengthened by 8.5 years and that of girls by 5.8 years. The difference between sexes was largest in the late 1970’s, when it was nine years.

Finnish women fare well when comparing life expectancies in Nordic countries. During the past 30 years, the life expectancy has lengthened most in Finland for both women and men.

Finnish women over the 30 years have reached the same level of life expectancy as the women in Sweden and Norway. In 2019, women’s life expectancy was good 84 years in all the three countries. Danish women’s life expectancy has stayed at a lower level throughout the reference period.

In the 1980s, Finnish men had the shortest life expectancy in the Nordic countries. During 30 years since then, the difference between the life expectancy of Finnish men and Danish men has diminished, but in both countries the life expectancy in 2019 was still about two years shorter than in Sweden and Norway.