In 2023, life expectancy at birth was 81.1 years on average across OECD countries (Figure 3.1). Spain, Japan and Switzerland led a large group of 27 OECD Member countries in which life expectancy at birth exceeded 80 years. A second group, including the United States and the remaining OECD countries, had a life expectancy between 75 and 80 years. In all accession/partner countries, life expectancy remained below the OECD average in 2023, with levels lower than 75 years in South Africa, Indonesia, and India. Still, levels have been converging rapidly in most of these countries in recent decades. Provisional 2024 data available for some countries shows a slight year-on-year increase in life expectancy at birth.
Women live longer than men in all OECD Member and accession/partner countries. This gender gap averaged 5.2 years across OECD countries in 2023: life expectancy at birth for women was 83.7 years, compared to 78.5 years for men (Figure 3.1). These differences in life expectancy are due in part to greater exposure to behavioural risk factors among men – particularly high tobacco consumption, excessive alcohol consumption and less healthy diets (see Chapters 2 and 4). Men are also more likely to die from violent deaths, such as suicide and accidents, which are the leading cause of premature mortality among men (see Chapter 2).
Gender differences in life expectancy are especially marked in Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, with gaps of 8 years or more. Life expectancy gaps between men and women are relatively narrow in the Netherlands and Norway, at around 3 years. Over time, the difference in life expectancy between men and women across OECD countries has declined slightly, largely due to reductions in cardiovascular mortality in men (OECD/The King's Fund, 2020[1]) and changes in behavioural risk profiles.
While women typically live longer than men, they do not necessarily enjoy more time in good health, notably in later years. Women aged 60 can expect to live 3.4 years longer than men, but also spend more years with activity limitation (6.3 vs. 5.0 years), on average across OECD countries. As a result, women live a smaller share of their remaining years in good health – 26% of their life after age 60 is spent in poor health, compared to 24% for men (see section on “Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at older ages” in Chapter 10).
Prior to the COVID‑19 pandemic, life expectancy increased in all OECD Member and accession/partner countries between 2010 and 2019, with an average increase of 1.7 years (Figure 3.1). While these gains were wiped out during the pandemic in many countries (with an average decrease of 0.7 years across OECD countries between 2019 and 2021), the latest data shows signs of a subsequent recovery. Life expectancy increased in 23 OECD countries between 2019 and 2023 by a year or more in Lithuania and Chile, and in partner country India. However, life expectancy in 2023 was still below pre‑pandemic levels in 13 OECD countries, as well as accession country Thailand.
Further, gains between 2010 and 2019 actually reflect a slowdown in life expectancy in many countries compared to historical trends. There are many causes of this slowdown. In some countries, particularly the United States and Canada, opioid use has caused more working-age adults to die from drug-related accidental poisoning. More broadly, slowing improvements in rates of heart disease and stroke have tempered life expectancy gains. This is linked to rising levels of obesity and diabetes, as well as population ageing (Raleigh, 2019[2]; OECD, forthcoming[3]). These factors have made it difficult for countries to maintain previous progress in cutting deaths from cardiovascular conditions, which are the leading cause of death across OECD, see section on “Mortality from circulatory diseases”.
