Foreigners Living in the EU Perceive Themselves Healthier Than EU Nationals

According to the EU statistical office Eurostat, the share of those with a bad or very bad state of self-perceived health differs amongst ages, as when taking into account this factor, though those non-EU nationals between the ages of 16 and 44 perceive themselves mostly healthy, the share of those aged between 45 and 64 years old who perceive themselves as not healthy, is quite higher.

“In the EU in 2020, the share of non-nationals 16 years or older in a bad or very bad state of self-perceived health was lower than for nationals (7.8 per cent for non-EU citizens and 7.2 per cent for EU citizens except nationals, compared with 8.6 per cent for nationals),” a recent report published by Eurostat highlights.

Yet, when taking age into account, the age group of 16 to 44, the share of whom perceive their health to be in a bad state for non-EU nationals is 2.3 per cent, 2.3 per cent for nationals, compared with 2.5 per cent for EU citizens except nationals.

The difference is quite noticeable when it comes to the age group of 45 to 64-year-olds who claim they are in a bad health condition.

“While only 8.0 per cent of nationals reported a bad or very bad state of health, 10.0 per cent of EU citizens except for nationals and 14.8 per cent of non-EU citizens reported the same,” Eurostat reveals.

The highest number of non-EU nationals perceiving themselves to be in bad condition are residents of Germany, or as many as 28.7 per cent of Germany’s total foreign population, followed by Denmark with 26.0 per cent and France with 25.6 per cent.

The lowest share of foreigners in a bad self-perceived health state was marked in Poland with 2.3 per cent and Italy with 2.4 per cent.

Regarding the other two groups, the data stand as below:

• EU citizens, except for nationals :
  • Highest: in Portugal (27.0 per cent ), by Latvia (16.9 per cent ) Austria (15.9 per cent ). The lowest shares were observed in
  • Lowest: Malta (1.2 per cent ), Ireland (2.4 per cent ) and Italy (2.5 per cent ).
• EU nationals:
  • Highest: Croatia (14.8 per cent ), Slovakia (13.2 per cent ) and Germany (12.6 per cent ),
  • Lowest: Malta (3.7 per cent ), Greece (4.6 per cent ) and Italy (4.7 per cent ).

The data on self-perceived health has been extracted from a survey of Eurostat, which asked the question about how a person perceives their health in general, using one of the following answer categories: very good, good, fair, bad or very bad. The analysis only focuses on the aggregated category bad/very bad.