IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 EPIDEMIC ON THE AGEING OF THE EUROPEAN POPULATION

The COVID-19 epidemic caused an increase in excess deaths worldwide, most of which were in the elderly. This study aims to identify the impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on reducing the intensity of change in population aging between 2020 and 2022 in selected European countries. Time-series analysis methods with trend and seasonality are used to estimate excess deaths. The study found that of the nearly 1.5 million excess deaths observed between 2020 and 2022 in the 28 European countries analyzed, almost 93% of these were in people aged 60 years and older. The results of the study indicate that in some countries (mainly central and eastern Europe), the scale of deaths due to the COVID-19 epidemic was large enough to clearly inhibit the aging dynamics of their populations.