You have full access to this open access article. Studies investigating the impact of European integration on mortality convergence are rare and did not consider regional differences.
We examine the short-term effects of the enlargement on mortality convergence at the supranational, national, and subnational levels. Using sex-specific life expectancies for 23 Member States — and the NUTS 2 regions in Czechia, Hungary, and Poland for —, we examined the trend in sigma and beta mortality convergence measures at the country and regional levels using joinpoint regression.
While there was overall beta and sigma convergence at the national level during —, no regional convergence showed, and the trends in convergence did not significantly change at the time of EU accession or soon after — The accession in did not visibly impact the overall process of mortality convergence over the short term, likely because of the greater influence of country and region-specific policies and characteristics.
The interaction of Member State and regional contexts with the mechanisms of European integration requires further study. Future enlargement procedures should emphasise tailored support to ensure more equitable gains from European integration. There is a historical east—west European gap in life expectancy, with life expectancy in the eastern part of the continent—i.
At the time of the first eastward enlargement of the European Union EU in , the average gap between the new Member States in the east and the old Member States in the west was seven years for men and four years for women Eurostat, a. The enlargement made the east—west life expectancy gap a central feature of geographic disparities in health in the EU, and became a source of concern for EU policy-makers.
