Mühlichen, Michael (2018)
In: Köppen, Bernhard; Schneider, Norbert F. (Hrsg.): Demographics of Korea and Germany. Population Changes and Socioeconomic Impact of two Divided Nations in the Light of Reunification. Opladen, Berlin, Toronto: Barbara Budrich: 49–57
West and East Germany experienced significant differences in the development of mortality over recent decades. In the first years after the division of Germany, average life expectancy was on the same level in the FRG and GDR. According to the earliest available numbers from the German Federal Statistical Office, average life expectancy at birth for men was 65.06 years in the GDR in 1952/1953 and 64.56 in the FRG in 1949/1951. Among women, it was 69.07 in the GDR and 68.48 in the FRG in those years. Between the late 1970s and 1990, however, a remarkable gap to the disadvantage of the GDR emerged. Following reunification, this east-west gradient in mortality began to disappear but it is still evident among men, albeit to a reduced degree.