“The statistics on deaths show that the number of deaths per year may vary significantly from year to year,” explains Tomas Johansson at the Population and Welfare Department at Statistics Sweden. In 2019, there were fewer than 89 000 deaths, which was the lowest number of deaths in a single year since 1977. In 2018, when exceptionally many people died from the influenza, there were more than 92 000 deaths in Sweden.

The tables that will be updated every week present the number of deaths per day in the period 2015-2020.

The statistics for 2020 are based on information submitted by the Swedish Tax Agency to Statistics Sweden up to and including 3 April 2020. This information should be regarded as raw data and will be adjusted as new information is received, since there is a delay in the reporting, in particular for the days just before publication. Statistics from two weeks ago are not expected to change substantially. Previous years’ statistics are based on Statistics Sweden’s final observation register.

These statistics are also shown by region and municipality and distributed by sex and age.

The statistics can be retrieved as an Excel file at scb.se 

Facts:

• In 2019, the most common age at the time of death was 88 years. In 2019, the most common age of death among women was 90 years, and among men it was 86 years.
• Among all those who died in 2019, 59 percent were aged 80 years or older. However, there is a large difference between the sexes. Among the women who died in 2019, 67 percent were aged 80 years or older, while among men the corresponding figure was 51 percent.
• In Sweden, mortality rates among persons younger than 65 years are relatively low, although there are differences between the sexes. Only 10 percent of all women who died in 2019 were 65 years or younger. The corresponding percentage for men was 15 percent.
• The number of deaths during one year largely depends on how many people there are in the oldest age groups. Between the mid-1920s and the late 1930s, comparatively few children were born in Sweden. This affects the number of people who die now, since they are 80-95 years old. At the same time, the average life expectancy is increasing and people are living longer. In the 1940s, a great many children were born in Sweden, which means we can expect the number of deaths per year to increase in the next twenty years.

Fact page on deaths in sweden (in Swedish)