[Life expectancy with and without need for care. Extent and development trends in Germany]

This article addresses the question if the number of life years men and women can expect to live in good health is increasing and secondly if the life years in long-term care decline to a shorter period before death (compression of morbidity) during the periods 1999-2003 to 2004-2008. The analyses is based on data of a health insurance company (Gmünder Ersatzkasse, GEK), which are calculated, using the prevalence-rate method of Sullivan. The results show that men and women at age 60 can expect to live longer (21.21 years instead of 20.04 years for men and 25.1 years instead of 23.96 years for women) and also live longer free of long-term care (19.89 instead of 18.89 years for men and 22.37 instead of 21.55 years for women). In addition to the prolonged life years, also the number of years a person can expect to live in long-term-care has increased (from 1.15 years to 1.32 years for men and from 2.41 years to 2.73 years for women). Therefore the data suggest that there is no compression of morbidity.