Statistics Office
Over a million deaths in 2022
The number of deaths increased by 3.4 percent compared to the previous year. photo
© Thomas Frey/dpa
In Germany, more and more people are dying every year. One reason: the proportion of older people in the population is growing. But other factors also play a role.
In 2022, 1.06 million people died in Germany. The number of deaths has increased by 3.4 percent compared to the previous year, according to the preliminary results of a special evaluation by the Federal Statistical Office, which was published in Wiesbaden.
Due to the increasing proportion of older people in the population, an annual increase in the number of deaths in Germany has been expected for the past 20 years. At the same time, life expectancy increased before the start of the corona pandemic – the effect of increasing life expectancy weakened the aging effect.
“In the first two years of the pandemic, the increase was more pronounced than in almost all previous years,” the statisticians now reported. “The increase of 3.4 percent last year also exceeds the average increase. According to preliminary calculations, only about a fifth of the total increase in 2022 can be explained by the increasing number of older people.”
Deaths compared to previous years
At the beginning of 2022, the number of deaths in Germany had “approximately normalized” according to the office. In March, April and May the numbers were slightly above the average. According to the statisticians, one explanation could have been the more frequent Covid deaths during this time. From June to August, the number of cases was then significantly higher than the average values of previous years. One reason might have been the extreme heat.
In autumn, too, the number of deaths was above the comparative value. The number of Covid deaths rose at the time, “but not to the same extent as the total number of deaths,” the statisticians reported. At the end of the year, the number of deaths was “very significantly” above the comparative value based on a projection. The reason could have been the many respiratory diseases that the Robert Koch Institute had identified during this time.