Women have more healthy years of life ahead of them than men in both Cyprus and the EU, according to data released by Eurostat, the statistical service of the EU.

According to the data, the number of healthy life years at birth in Cyprus stood at 66.0 years in 2022. For women, this number stood at 66.3 and for men at 65.7.

In the EU, the number of healthy life years in 2022 stood at 62.6 years on average, 62.8 years for women and 62.4 years for men.

Healthy life years are a different indicator from life expectancy, since it is based on measures of an age-specific proportion of population with and without disability and on mortality data.

Life expectancy at birth for women in the EU was, on average, 5.4 years longer than that for men (83.3 years compared with 77.9 years). Healthy life years - free from activity limitations - represent 75% and 80% of the total life expectancy for women and men, respectively.

Therefore, on average, men tend to spend a greater proportion of their somewhat shorter lives free from activity limitations.

Among EU countries, Malta recorded the highest number of healthy life years at birth in 2022 for women (70.3 years), ahead of Bulgaria (68.9 years) and Slovenia (68.5 years).

In contrast, Denmark had the lowest number of healthy life years for women (54.6 years), followed by Latvia (55.4 years) and the Netherlands (56.3 years).

The highest number of healthy life years for men was also recorded in Malta (70.1), followed by Sweden (67.5) and Italy (67.1), while the lowest ones were found in Latvia (53.0 years), Slovakia (56.6 years) and Denmark (57.1 years).