The Department of Health has published the latest statistical report ‘Life Expectancy in Northern Ireland 2021-23: Headline Figures’.
The Department of Health are the official producers of life expectancy figures for Northern Ireland.
The report presents the latest estimates of life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and disability-free life expectancy for Northern Ireland, including an assessment of trends over the last five years.
Key Findings
Life Expectancy
In 2021-23, life expectancy in Northern Ireland (NI) was 78.8 years for males and 82.5 years for females.
Since 1980-82, life expectancy has risen by 7.0 years for females and 9.6 years for males. However, life expectancy growth has slowed over the past decade for both males and females.
Following a downward trend in male and female life expectancies between 2017-19 and 2020-22, life expectancy has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
In 2021-23, life expectancy at age 65 in NI was 18.5 years for males and 20.7 years for females, with no significant change over the last five years.
Healthy and Disability-Free Life Expectancy
In 2021-23, males could expect to live 60.3 years in good health compared with 59.2 years in 2017-19, however the change was not statistically significant.
Female Healthy Life Expectancy (HLE) stood at 61.4 years in 2021-23 and, similar to males, there was no significant change over the last five years.
As with HLE, there was no significant change in Disability-Free Life Expectancy (DFLE) over the recent five-year period (2017-19 to 2021-23) for males or females.
Female DFLE stood at 57.4 years in 2021-23, compared with 58.4 years in 2017-19.
In 2021-23, males could expect to live 58.2 years free of disability, compared with 57.9 years in 2017-19.