At the beginning of 60s, Slovakia belonged to countries with a relatively low level of mortality. Since the half of 60s, the 25-years period of stagnation or in some cases also the worsening of mortality started in Slovakia. This fact was confirmed by all demographic indicators - from the slowly decreasing infant mortality, through very high mortality at the medium and older age, mainly in case of men, up to values of a complex indicator being the life expectancy at birth. Currently, the men in Slovakia live at the average by 7 years shorter than men in most advanced countries. In case of women, this difference was lower - approximately by 5 years.
The causes of an unfavourable mortality development are generally valid and the situation in this direction in Slovakia is not exceptional. They can be grouped into three main groups - the level of healthcare system, state of environment and the life style of population. It cannot be expected that the main causes of the high mortality will be removed day-to-day. Moreover, the mortality development is strongly affected by its biological conditionality. Thus, changes in the mortality level are usually long-term and slow. The development of mortality after 1990 is therefore a positive finding and is probably mainly the consequence of the growing responsibility of inhabitants for their own health.
During 90s the increase in the life expectancy at birth for women continued more significantly than in the previous period decade. For men, the stagnation had stopped and the life expectancy started to grow. In 2004 the life expectancy at birth of men exceeded for the first time the value of 70 years. It is the continuation of positive trend in mortality from 1998. Currently, the life expectancy at birth of men is 70.11 years and of women 77.90 years. Also the diminishing of the difference in the expected life length between genders is confirmed. This diminishing indicates a faster decrease of mortality in case of men. In 2005 this difference was 7.8 years. The fall in mortality is related to all age categories.
Important components of the mortality development are deaths under one year. The lowest values of infant mortality rate and of post-neonatal mortality rate also, were recorded in 2001. The year 2005 was the year of gentle worsening of mortality during the first year of life. The infant mortality rate increased as compared to 2001 by 15 %.
Investigation of mortality differentiated by the causes of death gives an interesting picture. The five most important classes of the causes of death cover currently more than 90% of all deaths. In 2005 nearly half of the total number of men (47.9 %) died due to the circulatory system diseases, 24.9 % due to neoplasms, 8.7 % due to the external causes, 5.8 % due to the digestive system diseases and 6.2 % because of the respiratory system diseases. In case of women, almost 61.3 % die due to the circulatory system diseases, 19.8 % due to neoplasms, 5.1 % due to the respiratory system diseases, 4.4 % due to the digestive system diseases and 2.7 % due to external causes.