Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday.
The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement.
For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year.
Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year.
The metric then fell to 80.86 in 2021 before bottoming out at 79.84 in 2022, a level not seen since 2014, before rebounding to 80.23 in 2023 when the pandemic eased.
Life expectancy for both men and women peaked in 2020, at 78.11 years and 84.75 years, respectively.
When compared with the global average life expectancy published by the UN, Taiwan’s average life expectancy for men and women was 6.7 years and 8.3 years higher respectively.
The country’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than that of China, Malaysia and Indonesia, the ministry said.
The 6.88-year difference in life expectancy between men and women in Taiwan was also relatively high, exceeding a six-year difference in Japan, 5.8-year difference in South Korea, 4.4-year difference in Singapore, and four-year difference in Australia.
Taipei had the highest average life expectancy in Taiwan last year at 83.40 years, followed by Hsinchu City (81.52 years), New Taipei City (80.97 years), Chiayi City (80.67 years) and Taoyuan (80.65 years), ministry data showed.
In terms of Taiwan’s six special municipalities, all except Taoyuan saw their average life expectancy rise last year.
The eastern county of Taitung had the lowest life expectancy of any of Taiwan’s 22 administrative regions at 75.97 years.
Total deaths in Taiwan last year fell to 201,313, down 3,889 from the previous year. Among them, 152,593 people were aged 65 or older, accounting for 75.8 percent of all deaths, ministry data showed.
Taiwan’s crude death rate last year was 8.60 per 1,000 people, down 0.19 points from 2023, the ministry said, adding that the standardized mortality rate — a life expectancy metric that adjusts for age distribution — was 410.27 per 100,000 people, a 4.49 percent decrease from the previous year.
Average life expectancy is an important statistical indicator for assessing a nation’s basic health, overall socioeconomic well-being, and competitiveness, the ministry said.
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