Page 12 - THE ROMANIAN HEALTH CARE

Chapter 2: Health in Romania

2.1 Life Expectancy

Life expectancy at birth in Romania is the fourth lowest in the EU. Overall life expectancy is

75.3 years, considerably lower as in The Netherlands or the EU (81.7 years and 81.0 years

respectively). On the positive side between 2000 and 2016 the life expectancy increased by 4

years in Romania. The gap in life expectancy between Romania and the Netherlands hardly

closed over the same time span, as the Dutch life expectancy rose by 3.5 years. The following

tables give an overview of the life expectancy for women and men.

Table 2.1 - Life expectancy of women.

Women 2000 2016
Romania 74.8 79.1
The Netherlands 80.7 83.2
difference NL-RO 5.9 4,1
EU average n.a. 83.6
Source: Eurostat, unit: year

Most notably is that Romanian women are closing the gap with Dutch women, while

Romanian men fail to do so. Main reason for this is that Romanian men engage more into

behaviour that is a risk to their health, especially smoking and the consumption of large

quantities of alcohol by predominantly older men.

Table 2.2 - Life expectancy of men and women
Men 2000 2016
Romania 67.7 71.7
The Netherlands 75.6 80.0
difference NL-RO 7.9 8.3
EU average n.a. 78.2
Source: Eurostat, unit: year

2.2 Causes of death

Romanians live relatively short compared to other EU citizens. A measure for this is the

standardised death rate per 100,000 inhabitants (the number of people that die per 100,000
inhabitants in a country, in a year). For Romania this is: 1,530 compared to 1,036 for the EU

and 992 for the Netherlands. Romania has the second highest death rate in the EU. Table 2.3

provides an overview of differences in mortality by age and sex. The most notable difference

between Romania and The Netherlands is the very high death rate for men under 65 years, to

a lesser extent also for women under 65 years.

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