Excess life-years and productive life-years lost in Poland through the COVID-19 pandemic and post-pandemic years

TL;DR

The study shows that the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland caused significant loss of life and productive years, especially among working-age men.

Contribution

The study introduces a novel method to quantify productive life-years lost due to the pandemic.

Findings

Poland experienced 257,246 excess deaths from 2020–2024, with 27% of life-years lost occurring at working age.

Men accounted for 72% of eYPLL and 79% of eYPPLL despite representing 54% of excess deaths.

Over half of female and a third of male productive-life loss occurred between ages 30 and 49.

Abstract

Poland’s COVID-19 experience resulted in one of Europe’s most severe mortality shocks, yet the share of lost life-years occurring at working age has not been quantified.

We analysed weekly all-cause deaths by sex and 5-year age groups for 2011–2019, and fitted fixed effects linear models to forecast expected mortality rates for 2020–2024. Next, we compared predicted and observed rates to estimate excess mortality. These estimates were converted into excess deaths and p-scores, excess Years of Potential Life Lost (eYPLL) and excess Years of Potential Productive Life Lost (eYPPLL).

We estimated 257,246 excess deaths in Poland over the five-year horizon (13.4% and 12.2% more deaths than expected in men and women, respectively). These deaths yielded 1,921,265 eYPLL and 521,887 eYPPLL, meaning that 27% of all life-years lost fell within working age. Men accounted for 54% of excess deaths but 72% of eYPLL and 79% of eYPPLL. More than half of the female and more than a third of the male productive-life loss accrued between ages 30 and 49. Temporal concentration was marked, 46% of excess deaths and 40% of eYPPLL occurred in 2021 alone. In 2023–2024, negative excess mortality emerged among older adults (aged 55–69), but without fully offsetting losses among the working-age and 70 + population. This translated to negative eYPLL in women in 2024, but persistent productive-age losses were still identified in this group. COVID-19-coded fatalities explained almost two-thirds of eYPLL and 40% of eYPPLL during 2020–2024. Poland’s excess mortality resulted in an average loss of 14–15 productive years for every excess death before retirement.

This study extends usual excess deaths estimates to the productive life lost dimension and shows that the pandemic curtailed not only longevity but also burdened Poland with over half a million labour-force years lost. These losses magnify pre-pandemic labour shortages and add demographic pressure, translating to reduced labour supply and potential output, and underscoring the macroeconomic cost of major health shocks such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13690-025-01792-0.

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