Life Expectancy for Russians at Age 55 Jumped after Covid But Only Because Many of the Weakest Died, ‘To Be Precise’ Portal Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Mar. 24 – Most governments report on life expectancy from birth not only because it is the most widely understood and available measure but because the authorities can quickly boost that statistic with relatively small reductions in mortality rates among babies and infants.
    It is nonetheless a useful figure especially when making comparisons among countries, but one that says even more about the state of well-being of a society is life expectancy at older age groups, particularly at age 55 which is typically close to the end of the working life of individuals.
    As part of its broader study of the state of the older generation in the Russian Federation, the To Be Precise portal provides data on that not only among the federal subjects of the country now but over time (tochno.st/materials/kak-zivet-starsee-pokolenie-v-rossii-reiting-regionov-ot-esli-byt-tocnym).
    For the Russian Federation as a whole, life expectancy at age 55 rise from 17.8 additional years in 2019 to 20.2 additional ones in 2023. The reason for the large jump in that year reflected no dramatic increase in medical care or changes in life style but the fact that so many elderly who were ill died in the course of the covid pandemic the year before.
    This is just one of the statistics that To Be Precise offers about the condition of those over 55 in the Russian Federation that helps to explain why the number of elderly in that country has grown so slowly over the last decades (tochno.st/materials/za-poslednie-30-let-granica-starosti-v-rossii-sdvinulas-na-tri-goda-vpered-i-eto-xorosaia-novost-no-smertnost-liudei-starse-65-let-vse-eshhe-vysokaia).