UniCredit, one Italy’s largest banks, is positioning itself at the forefront of the longevity economy—a strategic move that aligns with its European roots and commitment to sustainable finance. Recognizing the profound demographic shifts underway, particularly in aging societies like Italy, UniCredit has developed the Longevity Index (LI). This tool assesses how well countries are equipped to support longer, healthier lives, focusing on four key dimensions: individual behavior, healthcare systems, physical environments, and social conditions.
The UniCredit Longevity Economic Forum 2025 brought to light a pioneering tool in the longevity discourse: the UniCredit Longevity Index (LI). This blog will delve into the meaning, significance, structure, and implications of the index — evaluating its drivers, methodology, and cross-country comparisons, while also considering its potential limitations.
🌱 What is the UniCredit Longevity Index?
The Longevity Index is a research-based measurement tool that assesses how well countries are prepared to support their citizens in living longer, healthier, and more fulfilling lives. This index goes beyond typical aging indicators like life expectancy or retirement age. Instead, it offers a multidimensional assessment that captures the structural and behavioral factors shaping longevity outcomes.
The index was designed with an ambitious aim: to inform investment strategies, public policies, and corporate decision-making in the face of one of the most profound demographic shifts of our time.
🔍 Why is the Longevity Index Important?
By 2050, one in six people globally will be aged 65 or older. This “silver tsunami” brings with it challenges — such as increased healthcare costs, labor shortages, and pension sustainability — but also opportunities to redesign systems for longer and healthier life. The Longevity Index helps identify which countries are creating enabling environments for aging populations, and where there are gaps. It equips decision-makers with comparative insights into societal preparedness for longevity and can guide the deployment of public and private capital toward longevity-aligned solutions.
🧩 Methodology and Drivers of the Longevity Index
The Longevity Index is built around four key dimensions, each reflecting a crucial pillar of a a few subcategories:
1. Individual Behavior This domain reflects personal health choices, including diet, exercise, tobacco/alcohol consumption, preventive health checkups, and digital engagement with health tools. These are seen as modifiable factors that significantly affect healthspan and functional capacity in older age.
2. Healthcare System This examines access to healthcare services, public expenditure on health, the availability of geriatric care, innovation in medical technologies, and the efficiency of healthcare delivery. It also accounts for early diagnosis and chronic disease management.
3. Physical Environment Includes elements such as air quality, access to green spaces, walkability, safe housing, and infrastructure that allows for independent living as people age.
4. Social Conditions This final pillar addresses education, lifelong learning, intergenerational integration, income inequality, employment for older workers, and social connectedness — factors that influence emotional well-being and productivity in later years. Each domain includes both quantitative metrics (e.g., number of physicians per capita, life satisfaction scores) and qualitative assessments (e.g., national aging strategies, innovation in eldercare models).
🌍 Country Comparisons
This view compares countries ranked by Longevity Index scores, showing GDP per capita (red bars), Longevity Index values (white circle), and life expectancy metrics (bottom grey sections). The visualisation highlights the relationships between economic prosperity and health outcomes across European nations and the USA.
Key takeaways indicate that Nordic countries such as Sweden and Denmark scored highly across all dimensions of the Longevity Index, particularly excelling in healthcare infrastructure, the physical environment, and systems that promote lifelong learning. Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria also ranked near the top, benefiting from strong healthcare access and robust social protection systems.
In Southern Europe, countries like Italy and Spain performed well in areas related to individual behaviors, such as adherence to the Mediterranean diet and strong family support networks; however, they struggled with providing adequate employment opportunities for older adults and faced efficiency challenges in their healthcare systems.
In contrast, Eastern European countries showed lower overall preparedness. Despite often having high rates of home ownership among older adults, these countries lagged behind in social infrastructure and health investments. Looking beyond Europe, Japan was praised for its innovative approaches to eldercare and the integration of robotics into caregiving, though it exhibited weaknesses in the labor force participation of older citizens.
The United States stands out as a particularly intriguing outlier. While it leads in healthcare expenditure, it continues to face significant challenges in delivering equitable health outcomes and providing sufficient social support for its aging population. This disparity underscores the complex, multifaceted nature of longevity preparedness and the necessity for holistic strategies that go beyond financial investment alone.
This comparative analysis underscores the non-linear nature of longevity readiness — a country may have excellent healthcare but fall short in areas like digital inclusion or age-friendly housing.
Pitfalls and Limitations
Despite its strengths, the Longevity Index faces several important limitations. One key challenge lies in data gaps and the lack of standardization. Many countries do not have robust or up-to-date data for critical indicators such as digital health usage among seniors or the quality of long-term care. This can hinder cross-country comparisons, as inconsistencies in data collection methods and definitions may affect accuracy and comparability.
Another limitation is the index’s static nature. It serves more as a snapshot of current conditions than as a dynamic model that captures momentum or recent policy reforms that are still in progress. As a result, it may overlook positive trends that are beginning to emerge but have not yet translated into measurable outcomes.
Additionally, the index does not explicitly account for economic resilience in older age — factors such as pension adequacy, wealth inequality, or vulnerability to income shocks. These are crucial elements in evaluating a population’s true preparedness for longer life spans, yet they are largely absent from the current framework.
Lastly, the scalability of the index beyond OECD countries remains uncertain. While the framework is well-suited to high-income nations, its applicability to rapidly aging middle-income countries like Brazil, China, or India is less clear. These countries face distinct developmental challenges, and the index may require adaptation to reflect their specific contexts and constraints.
To summarize, as global populations age, the Longevity Index, developed by UniCredit, emerges as a critical tool for understanding how nations are preparing for the challenges and opportunities of longer life expectancy. Unlike traditional indicators that focus solely on life expectancy or retirement age, the index offers a holistic and research-based framework for assessing countries’ preparedness for healthy aging.
Comparative insights reveal that Nordic countries lead across most domains, followed by Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands. Southern European nations like Italy and Spain excel in personal behaviors and family support but struggle with healthcare efficiency and employment for older adults. Eastern Europe shows lower readiness, especially in infrastructure and health investment. Outside Europe, Japan excels in innovation and caregiving technologies but lags in older workforce participation. Meanwhile, the United States—despite high healthcare spending—faces disparities in equitable outcomes and social support, making it a notable outlier.
Ultimately, the Longevity Index offers a vital lens through which policymakers, investors, and institutions can assess and improve societal readiness for the age of longevity—encouraging not just longer lives, but healthier and more meaningful ones.