GROS Life Expectancy for Administrative Areas within Scotland, 2006-2008

The key points in this report for 2006-2008 are:

At Birth:

Life expectancy at birth for Scotland was 75.0 years for men and 79.9 years for women;
Life Expectancy varied considerably across Scotland. The Council area with the highest life expectancy for men and women was East Dunbartonshire (78.0 years and 82.5 years respectively) this was 7.3 years more for men and 5.3 years more for women than Glasgow City which had the lowest life expectancy for both genders;
For men, the NHS Board area with the highest life expectancy was Borders (77.1 years), for women life expectancy was highest in Shetland (81.5 years);
The NHS Board area with the lowest life expectancy for both men and women was Greater Glasgow & Clyde (72.7 and 78.6 years respectively).

At age 65:

Life expectancy at age 65 for Scotland was 16.3 years for men and 18.9 years for women;
The Council area with the highest life expectancy at age 65 for men and women was Shetland (17.9 years and 20.4 years respectively), 4.1 years for men and 3.0 years for women more than Glasgow City, which had the lowest life expectancy for both genders;
The NHS Board area with the highest life expectancy at age 65 for men and women was Shetland (17.9 years and 20.4 years respectively); and NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde had the lowest life expectancy at age 65 for men and women (15.0 years and 18.1 years respectively).

Compared with 10 years ago in 1996-1998:

Life expectancy at birth for Scotland has increased by 2.6 years for men (from 72.4 years to 75.0 years) and 1.9 years for women (from 78.1 years to 79.9 years);
The gap between men and women continues to close, dropping from 5.6 years to 4.9 years over the period;
Although some areas had only very small increases in life expectancy over the 10 year period, there were no areas (Council or NHS Board area) that experienced a decrease in life expectancy;
For men, the gap between the Council area with the highest life expectancy and the Council area with the lowest life expectancy decreased by 0.2 years — from 7.5 years in 1996-1998 to 7.3 years in 2006-2008. Whereas, for women, the gap increased by 0.4 years — from 4.9 years to 5.3 years. For NHS Board areas the gap decreased for both men and women by 0.3 years;
Among Council areas, the biggest rise in life expectancy was in West Lothian (4.0 years) for men and East Dunbartonshire (3.1 years) for women. The smallest rise in life expectancy was in Orkney (1.1 years) for men, and Moray (0.5 years) for women;

Comparison with EU-27

Scottish men and women have among the lowest life expectancy at birth in Europe. Only the Eastern European states which joined the European Union (EU) on 1 May 2004 and 1 January 2007 have lower figures.
Scottish men can expect to live slightly shorter lives (0.8 years) than the EU average. For Scottish women, life expectancy is 2.0 years lower than the EU average. For both genders the expectation of life is 4.0 to 4.5 years lower than the countries with the highest expectation of life.