중동부유럽

Life expectancy is theoretical indicator calculated in life tables. It reflects characteristics of hypothetical stationary population with the same level of mortality as selected population in given year. Life expectancy e0x means expected number of years of life remaining at a given age x. Most often life expectancy at birth for males and females is presented, which means how many subsequent years of life on average can expect newly born person according to mortality experience. In the paper, there are analyzed trends in life expectancy in selected European countries since 1950 with special attention to the Czech Republic. Common feature is growing life expectancy for both males and females that is one of the attribute of population ageing typical for all developed countries in Europe. Periods of slowly or fast growing trend and constant trend alternate. Trends of males’ and females’ life expectancies at birth prove process of convergence between genders, whereas the difference of males and females for the life expectancy at the age of 80 years increases. In all cases it is visible that selected countries are divided into two groups: Western countries (AT, GE, FR, IT, ES, SW) and Central and Eastern countries (CR, SK, HU, PL) with different patterns of trend.