A patient who passed away with doctors around him

In 2021, cancer was the leading cause of death for both men and women aged less than 65 years in the EU.

It was a more frequent cause of death for women in this age group, with 40.6% of all deaths recorded. For men, it stood at 25.6%. 

This information comes from data on the main cause of death published by Eurostat. This article presents a selection of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article. 

The other most frequent causes of death for women aged less than 65 were circulatory diseases (14.9%), COVID-19 (10.2%) and respiratory diseases (4.2%). 

For men, after cancer, circulatory diseases (22.0%), COVID-19 (9.8%) and accidents (6.9%) were the major causes of deaths.

Frequency of major causes of death analysed by age group and sex, EU, 2021. Bar chart. For more information click dataset below.

Source dataset: hlth_cd_aro


When it comes to people aged 65 years and over, the main causes of death for women were circulatory disease (37.3%), cancer (16.9%), COVID-19 (9.9%) and respiratory disease (5.7%).

For men aged 65 years and over, the main causes were the same but with varying proportions. Circulatory disease (31.8%) was the main cause, followed by cancer (23.3%), COVID-19 (12.0%) and respiratory disease (7.3%).

For more information

Methodological notes

  • Causes of death are classified according to the European shortlist (86 causes), which is based on the 10th revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10).
  • When the outbreak of COVID-19 started, the WHO introduced emergency codes in the ICD version 10 (ICD-10) that countries could use to report deaths from COVID-19. In Eurostat’s dissemination database, the codes are available as follows:
    • U071 – COVID-19, virus identified (deaths where COVID-19 has been confirmed by laboratory testing)
    • U072 – COVID-19, virus not identified (COVID-19, virus not identified)
    • U_COV19_OTH – COVID-19 other (COVID-19 death not elsewhere defined)
  • The data for COVID-19 reported in this article were calculated by adding the data for these three codes, however the data disseminated in Eurostat’s dissemination database are for each separate code. 

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