Life Expectancy at Birth (2020): 82.4
Maternal Mortality Ratio (per 100,000 live births) (2017): 4
Neonatal Mortality Rate (per 1,000 live births) (2020): 1
Probability of Dying from any of Cardiovascular Disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Chronic Respiratory Diseases Between Age 30 and Exact Age 70 (%) (2019): 8.4%

Neonatal Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2019): 1
Infant Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2019): 2
Under-5 Mortality Rate (Deaths Per 1,000 Live Births) (2019): 2

Note: “Under-5 mortality rate – Probability of dying between birth and exactly 5 years of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
“Infant mortality rate – Probability of dying between birth and exactly 1 year of age, expressed per 1,000 live births.
“Neonatal mortality rate – Probability of dying during the first 28 days of life, expressed per 1,000 live births.”

Maternal Deaths Per 100,000 Live Births, 2020: 5

Adverse events in hip and knee surgeries: post-operative pulmonary embolism (PE) or deep vein thrombosis (DVT), 2019 (Rate per 100,000 Hospital Discharges):
— PE: 318.3; DVT: 86.8
Obstetric trauma, vaginal delivery with instrument, 2019 (Crude rate per 100 instrument-assisted vaginal deliveries): 9.9
Obstetric trauma, vaginal delivery without instrument, 2019 (Crude rate per 100 instrument-assisted vaginal deliveries): 2.1
Asthma hospital admission in adults, 2019 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 16.4
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) hospital admission in adults, 2019 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 139.9
Congestive heart failure (CHF) hospital admission in adults, 2019 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 226.7
Diabetes hospital admission in adults, 2019 (Age-sex standardized rates per 100,000 population): 75.5

Source: OECD (2021), Health at a Glance 2021: OECD Indicators, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/ae3016b9-en.

“Life expectancy at birth in Sweden was one of the highest in the EU in 2020, despite the sharp temporary reduction of 0.8 years due to the relatively high number of deaths from COVID-19 (Figure 1). This reduction is slightly larger than the average in the EU overall (0.7 years). This was the biggest decline in life expectancy in Sweden since 1944 (Statistics Sweden, 2021).

“Gender and social inequalities in life expectancy are less pronounced than in most EU countries The gender gap in life expectancy in Sweden is much smaller than in other EU countries (3.5 years compared with 5.6 years for the EU average). Inequalities in life expectancy by education level are also less pronounced than in most other EU countries. Nonetheless, life expectancy at age 30 for men with the lowest level of education was four years lower than for the most educated in 2017, while the gap between the lowest and highest educated women was about three years (Figure 2).

“In 2020, socioeconomic inequalities in life expectancy are expected to rise, since excess mortality due to COVID-19 was highest in areas with high numbers of migrants and people on lower incomes (Public Health Agency of Sweden, 2021a).”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2021), Sweden: Country Health Profile 2021, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

“In 2018, circulatory diseases accounted for one third of all deaths in Sweden (33 %), followed by cancer (all sites), which accounted for one quarter (25 %).

“Focusing on more specific diseases, ischaemic heart disease (nearly 12 % of all deaths) and stroke (over 6 %) were the leading causes of mortality in 2018. Lung cancer was the most frequent cause of death by cancer (Figure 3).

“In 2020, COVID-19 accounted for over 10,000 deaths in Sweden (10 % of all deaths). An additional 4,500 deaths were registered in the first eight months of 2021. More than two thirds of deaths were among people aged 80 and over.

“The mortality rate from COVID-19 up to the end of August 2021 was 10 % lower in Sweden than the average across EU countries (about 1,420 per million population compared with an EU average of 1,590), although it was many times higher than in Norway and Finland.

“When looking at excess mortality, the number of excess deaths from all causes in Sweden from March to December 2020 compared with previous years was lower than the number of COVID-19 deaths. This indicates that deaths from other causes were lower and that there was no undercounting of the number of COVID-19 deaths in Sweden, unlike in several other EU countries (Box 1).”

Source: OECD/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies (2019), Sweden: Country Health Profile 2019, State of Health in the EU, OECD Publishing, Paris/European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, Brussels.

Health Systems Facts is a project of the Real Reporting Foundation. We provide reliable statistics and other data from authoritative sources regarding health systems in the US and sixteen other nations.

Page last updated March 3, 2023 by Doug McVay, Editor.