Italia among the longest-living countries: 83.4 years life expectancy at birth

With a life expectancy at birth of 83.4 years, Italia is today one of the longest-living countries in the world. Between 1990 and 2024, life expectancy at birth increased by about 8 years for men and 6.5 years for women, to 81.5 and 85.6 years respectively. The median age at death in 2023 is 81.6 years for males and 86.3 years for females, with an important territorial variability: from less than 82 years in Campania to more than 86 in Marche, with all the most populous regions in the South at a disadvantage.

This is what emerges from ISTAT's report 'Health: an achievement to defend'. The analysis traces the historical evolution of longevity in Italia. Among the main factors that have historically contributed to the increase in average longevity is the drastic drop in mortality within the first year of life, which in 2023 stood at 2.7 per thousand live births, one of the lowest values in the world, while in the 19th century it was 230 per thousand. Progress in reducing infant mortality and increasing life expectancy is the result of a long process, to which improved nutrition and hygiene, medical advances and the spread of vaccines have contributed.

After 1978, with the establishment of a universalistic healthcare system in terms of access to treatment, these advances have gradually consolidated. With improved sanitary conditions, mortality from infectious diseases, predominant in the post-unification decades, rapidly began to decline and has accounted for about 1% of total mortality since the 1990s.

In 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic caused mortality from infectious diseases to rise to 12.4 % of deaths, falling to 5.0 % in 2023. Mortality from respiratory and digestive diseases has also fallen formidably since the end of the 19th century: from 5-600 to 60-70 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants for the former, and from around 400 to 40 for the latter. The decrease in deaths from these causes contributed to the general mortality rate dropping to around 1,000 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants at the beginning of the 1950s, a level that has remained substantially stable until today, despite the ageing of the population.