Some European countries, such as Greece and Spain, were severely hit by the 2008 economic crisis whereas others, such as Germany, were practically spared by it. This divergence allowed us to implement a difference in differences research design which offered the possibility to observe the long-lasting effects produced by the crisis on European life expectancy. Our analysis—based on Eurostat data from 2001 to 2019—shows that life expectancy increased faster, after the onset of the crisis, in those countries where the rise in unemployment was more intense. Furthermore, our results show that this gain in life expectancy persisted, and sometimes further increased, until 2019 when most macro-economic variables had returned to their pre-crisis values. Previous research has identified that mortality behaves procyclically in developed countries: when the economy slows down mortality decreases and vice versa. Our findings show, by contrast, that life expectancy behaves asymmetrically: it responded to an increase but not to a decrease in unemployment. This calls for a reconsideration of the causal mechanisms linking together the economic cycle and mortality in developed countries.

一些欧洲国家，如希腊和西班牙，受到2008年经济危机的严重打击，而其他国家，如德国，几乎没有受到影响。这种分歧使我们能够实施差异研究设计，从而提供了观察危机对欧洲预期寿命产生的长期影响的可能性。我们基于 2001 年至 2019 年欧盟统计局数据的分析表明，危机爆发后，在失业率上升更为剧烈的国家，预期寿命增长更快。此外，我们的结果表明，预期寿命的增长持续存在，有时甚至进一步增加，直到 2019 年，大多数宏观经济变量恢复到危机前的值。先前的研究已经发现，发达国家的死亡率呈顺周期性变化：当经济放缓时，死亡率下降，反之亦然。相比之下，我们的研究结果表明，预期寿命表现得不对称：它对失业率的增长做出反应，但对失业率的下降却没有反应。这需要重新考虑发达国家经济周期与死亡率之间的因果机制。