Life expectancy forecast for 65-year-olds: 21.05 years in 2028

The newly projected 21.05 years of remaining life expectancy in 2028 are equal to last year’s forecast. The forecast describes the most likely development, but it also contains uncertainties. More information can be found in the final paragraph below.

State pension legislation based on CBS forecast

The CBS forecast is used as a basis for determining the future state pension entitlement age as laid down in the General Old Age Pension Act (AOW, Article 7a). As stipulated in the AOW Act, state pension entitlement will begin at 67 in 2024. This is also the age stipulated for 2025, 2026 and 2027. On the basis of the life expectancy forecast for 65-year-olds in 2028, the Minister of Social Affairs and Employment will determine the state pension entitlement age for 2028.

Life expectancy increasing, but lower in 2020 and 2021

Between 1950 and 2019, the remaining life expectancy for 65-year-olds rose from 14.3 to 20.1 years. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it decreased to 19.5 years in 2020. It remained unchanged in 2021. In both years, there were approximately 10 percent more deaths than expected. According to the current forecast, life expectancy in 2028 will be 1.0 years higher than in 2019, and 1.6 years higher than in 2020 and 2021.

Life expectancy for women is higher than for men. In 2021, the gap at age 65 was 2.6 years.

Life expectancy does not increase evenly over the years. The trend may accelerate or slow down in certain periods. In the Netherlands, as in other Western European countries, the increase in life expectancy was slower between 2012 and 2018; it accelerated slightly in 2019, but that year was followed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Decline expected to be temporary

In 2020 and 2021, the estimated number of deaths was 10 percent above what was expected in the absence of a pandemic. So far in 2022, the number of deaths has also been higher than expected, by over 7 percent. Depending on developments over the rest of the year, life expectancy in 2022 will also be lower than in a situation without coronavirus.

Nevertheless, the pandemic is not expected to adversely affect the upward trend in life expectancy that has been going on for years. In the past, after periods of high mortality such as during the Spanish flu and the Second World War, life expectancy quickly returned to its previous level. That is why the latest life expectancy forecast for 2028 is roughly the same as the one made before the pandemic.

Most likely scenario

For its projections of future life expectancy, CBS makes use of a model which was developed within the international scientific community. This model is based on the expectation that the stable decline in mortality risk around Western Europe will continue in the long term. In this way, temporary changes in the Dutch trend have a less distorting effect on future projections than if the model were solely based on national developments. However, forecasts remain uncertain. The degree of uncertainty around the forecast is calculated by using so-called forecast intervals. These indicate the degree of accuracy of a forecast.

The life expectancy forecast is part of the annual population forecast conducted by CBS. This forecast describes the most likely future development of the Dutch population. The Population forecast 2022–2070 will be published on 16 December 2022.