Potentials and challenges for sustainable progress in human longevity. Empirical evidence from subnational mortality trends in Europe (1992-2019)

Decreasing gains in life expectancy (e0) observed in several high-income countries before the COVID-19 pandemic raised concerns about the future prospects for human longevity. We aim at (i) assessing the trends of e0 at the sub-national level for 11 countries in Western Europe from 2002 to 2019, (ii) locating hot spots where e0 gains were almost null in recent years, (iii) providing insights about the factors influencing overall e0 improvements by breaking down this analysis by age groups. We leverage an extensive dataset of mortality data sourced from reliable records for 410 European regions. We smooth this dataset using a non-parametric approach to obtain reliable estimates of mortality rates ensuring that our analysis reflects real changes in population health rather than random deviations inherent to small populations. Our results reveal that the average pace of life expectancy gains across European regions rapidly decelerated between 2002 and 2015. However, such a dramatic deceleration took no longer between 2015 and 2019. Nevertheless, this recent positive trend is accompanied by large increases in regional disparities and the number of regions with null e0 gains. These regions are mainly situated in Germany and France.