A new survey carried out by INSEE has revealed that France is today the European Union country with the most centenarians. In total, 130,000 centenarians live within the 27 States (for a projection of 500,000 by 2050, according to Eurostat). Among them, 30,000 are French, according to the study published on April 5, 2023.
The latest study, which estimated the number of centenarians, dates from 2016: at that time there were 21,000 centenarians in France.
France is ahead of Germany in particular – 26,000 centenarians in 2021, compared to 20,500 in Germany that year. If this is the case, “it is also because the indicator of the number of people aged 100 and the number of 60-year-olds residing in a country 40 years earlieris good”, notes INSEE. It makes it possible to compare the probability of becoming a centenarian by country, by neutralizing the size effect of the latter, given the low number of migrations after the age of 60.
Concretely, out of 1,000 people aged 60 in 1980 in France, 21 became centenarians in 2020. This figure was 14.6 per 1,000 in 1973, again equivalent to first place in the EU.
INSEE has shared the ranking of European countries with the most centenarians. More precisely, it is the number of people who turned 100 in 2020 per 1,000 people aged 60 in 1980 by country in the EU:
Most centenarians in France are women
THE women predominate among centenarians, according to the INSEE report. Only 4,300 of the 30,000 French centenarians are men, a share of 14%. The fairer sex therefore represents 86% of centenarians in France.
The head of the Demographic and Social Studies Unit at Insee, Sylvie Le Minez, explains to the HuffPost that “centenarians are essentially women, because the life expectancy at birth of women in France is among one of the highest in Europewhich has been true for many years.
For clarification, in 2023, life expectancy is 85.2 years for women against 79.3 years for men.
She adds that centenarian men are more often in couple and more frequently at home than women.
Of the 30,000 French centenarians, half still live at homewhile the others are institutionalized.
Note that centenarians represent 0.04% of the entire French populationcompared to 1% for nonagenarians, 5% for octogenarians and 12% for sixties.
Most centenarians are graduates
“The probability of becoming a centenarian increases with diploma : among women aged 70 to 75 in 1990, 7% higher education graduates have reached the age of 100, twice as many as those without a diploma (3%), details INSEE in its report. Similarly, for men, centenarians were twice as numerous among higher education graduates as among non-graduates (3% against 1.5%).
The explanation is simple: graduates generally have a higher standard of livingwhich implies a better access to care and a better way of life (sleep, diet, etc.). People with more qualifications often exercise a less physical jobwhich means health wears out less quickly.
“In addition, some of their behaviors are more favorable to health: for example, they smoke less and this was also true in the past; According to the 1991-1992 Health survey, the probability of smoking decreases with the level of education, all other things being equal. Finally, the fact of not having obtained a diploma can be indicative of a chronic health problem”, adds INSEE.