Botswana - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Botswana was 69.79 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 69.79 in 2020 and a minimum value of 49.18 in 1960.

Definition: Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.

Source: (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2019 Revision, or derived from male and female life expectancy at birth from sources such as: (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3)

See also:

Year Value
1960 49.18
1961 49.68
1962 50.17
1963 50.64
1964 51.10
1965 51.55
1966 51.99
1967 52.44
1968 52.89
1969 53.35
1970 53.82
1971 54.33
1972 54.85
1973 55.40
1974 55.96
1975 56.52
1976 57.09
1977 57.65
1978 58.19
1979 58.69
1980 59.17
1981 59.65
1982 60.11
1983 60.54
1984 60.92
1985 61.17
1986 61.23
1987 61.06
1988 60.65
1989 60.02
1990 59.19
1991 58.23
1992 57.22
1993 56.22
1994 55.28
1995 54.41
1996 53.57
1997 52.75
1998 51.95
1999 51.21
2000 50.63
2001 50.28
2002 50.23
2003 50.52
2004 51.15
2005 52.13
2006 53.44
2007 54.98
2008 56.68
2009 58.45
2010 60.21
2011 61.91
2012 63.51
2013 64.98
2014 66.27
2015 67.34
2016 68.18
2017 68.81
2018 69.28
2019 69.59
2020 69.79

Development Relevance: Mortality rates for different age groups (infants, children, and adults) and overall mortality indicators (life expectancy at birth or survival to a given age) are important indicators of health status in a country. Because data on the incidence and prevalence of diseases are frequently unavailable, mortality rates are often used to identify vulnerable populations. And they are among the indicators most frequently used to compare socioeconomic development across countries.

Limitations and Exceptions: Annual data series from United Nations Population Division's World Population Prospects are interpolated data from 5-year period data. Therefore they may not reflect real events as much as observed data.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: Life expectancy at birth used here is the average number of years a newborn is expected to live if mortality patterns at the time of its birth remain constant in the future. It reflects the overall mortality level of a population, and summarizes the mortality pattern that prevails across all age groups in a given year. It is calculated in a period life table which provides a snapshot of a population's mortality pattern at a given time. It therefore does not reflect the mortality pattern that a person actually experiences during his/her life, which can be calculated in a cohort life table. High mortality in young age groups significantly lowers the life expectancy at birth. But if a person survives his/her childhood of high mortality, he/she may live much longer. For example, in a population with a life expectancy at birth of 50, there may be few people dying at age 50. The life expectancy at birth may be low due to the high childhood mortality so that once a person survives his/her childhood, he/she may live much longer than 50 years.

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Health Indicators

Sub-Topic: Mortality