Life Expectancy in Northern Ireland 2021-23: Headline Figures

The Department of Health today published the statistical report ‘Life Expectancy in Northern Ireland 2021-23: Headline Figures'.

The Department of Health are the official producers of life expectancy figures for Northern Ireland. This report presents the latest estimates of life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy for Northern Ireland, including an assessment of trends over the last five years.

Key Findings

Life Expectancy

• In 2021-23, life expectancy in Northern Ireland (NI) was 78.8 years for males and 82.5 years for females.
• Since 1980-82, life expectancy has risen by 7.0 years for females and 9.6 years for males. However, life expectancy growth has slowed over the past decade for both males and females.
• Following a downward trend in male and female life expectancies between 2017-19 and 2020-22, life expectancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
• In 2021-23, life expectancy at age 65 in NI was 18.5 years for males and 20.7 years for females, with no significant change over the last five years.

Healthy and Disability-Free Life Expectancy

• In 2021-23, males could expect to live 60.3 years in good health compared with 59.2 years in 2017-19, however the change was not statistically significant.
• Female Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) stood at 61.4 years in 2021-23 and, similar to males, there was no significant change over the last five years.
• As with HLE, there was no significant change in Disability-Free Life Expectancy (DFLE) over the recent five-year period (2017-19 to 2021-23) for males or females.
• Female DFLE stood at 57.4 years in 2021-23, compared with 58.4 years in 2017-19.
• In 2021-23, males could expect to live 58.2 years free of disability, compared with 57.9 years in 2017-19.

Notes to editors:

1. This publication is one of a series of reports produced as part of the NI Health & Social Care Inequalities Monitoring System (HSCIMS) and presents the latest estimates of life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy, along with an analysis of trends over the last five years.

2. Due to a delay in the publication of sub-regional population estimates for Northern Ireland, this report has been limited to headline regional figures only and will be followed up with the full report once sub-population estimates have been released. The follow up report will contain estimates for HSC Trust and Local Government Districts in addition to an analysis of deprivation gaps and an assessment of the extent to which mortality within certain ages and causes of death contributed to gaps and changes in life expectancy.

3. The analysis in this report is based on the latest official deaths statistics, which include deaths registered up to 2023 and does not reflect deaths occurring in 2024. Further provisional deaths statistics for more recent periods are available from the Northern Ireland Statistics & Research Agency (NISRA) within the NISRA weekly deaths Tables published at https://www.nisra.gov.uk/statistics/death-statistics/weekly-death-registrations-northern-ireland.

4. The methodology used to calculate life expectancy is consistent with that used in the HSCIMS bulletins.

5. All healthy and disability-free life expectancy analyses and calculations are based on self-reported health data sourced from the Health Survey Northern Ireland (HSNI) and population data published by NISRA. The methodology used to calculate healthy and disability-free life expectancy is consistent with that used in the HSCIMS bulletins.

6. It should be noted that due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, data collection for the 2020/21, 2021/22 and 2022/23 surveys moved from face-to-face interviewing to telephone mode. This may have influenced the responses given by respondents. In addition, the sample size was lower as a result and children were not included in the survey between 2020/21 and 2022/23. As a result, data relating to children in 2019 was held constant from 2020 to 2022.

7. This publication has been produced within two weeks of the Registrar General Annual Report release from which vital events data related to deaths could be obtained. As such, the figures for 2021-23 contained within this publication are the latest, official release of life expectancy estimates for Northern Ireland.