Life Expectancy – Scotland

Life expectancy (LE) is an estimate of the number of years an individual is expected to live and is most often measured from birth. For the most part of the 20th century, life expectancy has increased year on year (with the exception of the impact of the world wars). The steady increase in life expectancy continued across the UK, and Scotland, until 2010. During 2008-2010, the improvement in life expectancy started to slow and, from 2012-2014 until 2017-2019, any improvement in life expectancy has stalled (Fig x).  

Scotland has the lowest life expectancy of Western Europe and, over the last decade, the gap has widened with other European countries (Life Expectancy in Scotland 2021-2023 – National Records of Scotland (NRS)). The gap in life expectancy between the most and least deprived in Scotland has continued to widen highlighting the importance of the impact of wider determinants on life quality. For males in 2021-2023 there was a 13.2 year difference between the most and least deprived deciles. For females the difference was less at 10.5 years.

Most recent figures (2021-2023) for Life Expectancy in Scotland show that it has increased to 80.8 years for females and to 76.8 years for males since 2020-2022 but remains below that of the pre-pandemic years (2021-2023).

Figure x – Life Expectancy in Scotland for males and females (2000-2023)