The Balearics is the Spanish region with the highest life expectancy at birth in 2020, of 83.8 years, according to the annual report carried out by the Ministry of Health on ‘Life expectancy in Spain’, which analyses the data for 2020 and its evolution since 2006.
In the case of men, life expectancy at birth was 81.37 years in the Balearics, and in the case of women, it rises to 86.29 years.
According to the report, the Balearics was the second community, after the Canary Islands, with the least impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on life expectancy, with a variation of -0.3 years compared to 2019. Life expectancy at birth increased by 3.1 years in the region between 2006 and 2019 and by 2.8 years compared to 2020.
The Balearics also has the highest number of healthy years of life expectancy at birth, 80.3 years, ahead of the Basque Country, Navarre and Aragon.
In Spain as a whole, life expectancy at birth in 2020 stood at 82.2 years, 85 in women and 79.5 in men.
By Autonomous Community, the range goes from 79.6 years in Ceuta and Melilla to 83.8 years in the Balearics.
Together with the Balearic Islands, the Autonomous Communities with the highest life expectancy in 2020 were Galicia, with 83.6, the Basque Country, with 83.4, and the Canary Islands and Navarre, with 83.3. Meanwhile, together with Ceuta and Melilla, Castile-La Mancha, with 80.9, and Andalusia and Extremadura, with 81.7, were the Autonomous Communities with the lowest life expectancy at birth in 2020. The geographical pattern was very similar for both sexes.
According to OECD statistics, until 2020, Spain was one of the three countries, along with Japan and Switzerland, with the highest life expectancy at birth.
In 2020, Spain remained one of the countries with the highest life expectancy, although countries other than Japan and Switzerland had higher life expectancy: Ireland, Israel, Iceland, Australia, Norway and South Korea.