Even if the average life expectancy in Germany is almost unchanged compared to previous years - in 2020 it was 83.4 years for newborn girls and 78.6 years for newborn boys - last year, for the first time, there were more than 20,000 very old people given by 100 years and older.

Peter-Philipp Schmitt

Editor in the section “Germany and the World”.

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As the Federal Statistical Office announced on Tuesday in Wiesbaden, 20,465 people had passed the hundred-year mark, 3523 more than in the previous year.

According to statisticians, the main reasons for this are medical progress and increasing prosperity in Germany. 

Why there are 16,454, and therefore more than 80 percent, women among the particularly old people in Germany is still a mystery to the scientists.

It could be, as they say, their way of life.

In addition to structural gender differences, genetic aspects could also play a role.

Women born in 1920 have an average life expectancy of 64.7 years, compared to 57.5 years for men.

100 years ago, however, infant mortality was many times higher. While today, regardless of gender, thanks to the massively improved living conditions in Germany, only 0.3 percent of newborn children die in the first year of life, in 1920 there were around 41 times as many live-born girls (twelve percent) and even 45 times as many boys (14 percent).