Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in global life expectancy (LE) decrease with substantial geographical variations. One of the most contrasting patterns of LE losses are observed between countries of Western (WE) and Eastern (EE) Europe. Though the first wave of 2020 predominantly affected the WE countries, the EE experienced a steep deterioration over last months of 2020 and through 2021. The total LE losses in 2020-21 were much higher in EE than in WE (with the highest in Russia and Bulgaria and the lowest in Norway and Denmark). Pronounced EE disadvantage was seen at ages under 65. We provide conceptual framework and test several various measures (vaccination intake, trust in government/science, stringency of NPIs and their enforcement) to try and explain the differences in LE losses both across the European countries and between East and West of Europe.

Dr. Sergey Timonin has recently joined the ANU School of Demography as a research fellow. Before moving to the ANU Sergey worked at the Higher School of Economics (University) in Moscow, Russia and has been a guest researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research (MPIDR) in Germany. Together with the colleagues from MPIDR and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Sergey has been working on the methodology and estimations of the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on excess mortality and life expectancy losses in Europe and elsewhere.

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