Irish women have more 'healthy years' than Irish men

Healthy life years are defined as the number of years that a person is expected to live without an activity limitation or disability, or performing usual activities without health problems affecting them. Picture: PA /thinkstockphotos

Irish women can expect to have more than 67 years in good health, two years more than their male counterparts — while also outliving them by about four years to their mid-80s.

In so-called 'healthy life years', Irish people overall fare very well compared to their European counterparts, and are near the top when it comes to being in fine fettle for the majority of their lives.

The European Commission's data analysis wing Eurostat said that in 2020, the number of healthy life years at birth in the EU was 64.5 years for women and 63.5 years for men.

Healthy life years are defined as the number of years that a person is expected to live without an activity limitation or disability, or performing usual activities without health problems affecting them.

The Swedes sail through most of their lives in good health, the data show, while the Maltese are not too far behind. Swedish men buck the usual trend by remaining healthier than Swedish women for longer, albeit marginally.

"Sweden recorded the highest number of healthy life years at birth in 2020 for women (72.7 years), followed by Malta (70.7 years) and Italy (68.7 years). The highest numbers for men were also recorded in the same three countries — Sweden (72.8), Malta (70.2) and Italy (67.2)," Eurostat said.

Ireland comes in fifth position among EU member states, with 67.1 healthy years for women in 2020, and 65.3 for men, the data show.

By contrast, Latvian men and women are barely into their 50s when health issues catch up with them. Latvian women in 2020 can expect 54.3 good years of health, while men can expect just 52.6, Eurostat said.

The body did, however, caution that "extreme values can be partly explained by the way activity limitation is measured in the country, impacting the results to some extent".

The number of healthy life years at birth was higher for women than for men in 20 of the EU member states, with the difference between the sexes generally relatively small, according to Eurostat.

"In seven EU member states, the gap was more than two years, with the largest differences recorded in Bulgaria (+4.2 years), Estonia (+4.1 years) and Poland (+4.0 years)," it said.

At the opposite end of scale, the number of healthy life years for women was lower than for men in six EU member states, the data show.

"The largest differences were observed in the Netherlands (-2.8 years), Portugal (-2.1 years) and Finland (-1.8 years)," Eurostat said.