How many years will a person who is 15 years old today work on average in Europe? The average for the European Union as a whole last year was 35.9 years, three more than in 2000, according to data recently offered by Eurostat, the European statistical office.
However, there are substantial differences between the different European countries. Thus, an Icelandic worker has a life expectancy of 47 years, the longest in Europe, while in Turkey the average is 29 years.
If we analyze only the countries belonging to the European Union, Swedes are the ones who will work the most years on average (41.7), while Italians are the ones who will work the least (31.6). In Spain the figure is 35.1 years.
In all European countries, with the sole exception of Romania, the life expectancy has increased between 2000 and 2017.
Only in one country, Lithuania, women (36.3 years) have a longer working life expectancy than men (35.4). And in the case of Latvia, the expectancy is exactly the same: 36.2 years.
In Spain, the average working life for men is calculated at 37.2 years, while for women it is 32.8 years, almost 4 and a half years less.
The country in the European Union where there is a greater difference according to gender in years of working life is Malta, with twelve years. Outside the EU, Turkey is the one with the greatest difference, over 20 years, with 39 years for men and only 18.5 for women.