Burkina Faso - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Burkina Faso was 61.98 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 61.98 in 2020 and a minimum value of 34.43 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 34.43
1961 34.90
1962 35.37
1963 35.85
1964 36.33
1965 36.82
1966 37.29
1967 37.75
1968 38.21
1969 38.65
1970 39.10
1971 39.54
1972 40.00
1973 40.49
1974 41.03
1975 41.63
1976 42.34
1977 43.17
1978 44.08
1979 45.06
1980 46.05
1981 46.98
1982 47.81
1983 48.49
1984 48.99
1985 49.32
1986 49.49
1987 49.55
1988 49.55
1989 49.51
1990 49.45
1991 49.41
1992 49.37
1993 49.36
1994 49.38
1995 49.45
1996 49.56
1997 49.71
1998 49.91
1999 50.17
2000 50.49
2001 50.89
2002 51.38
2003 51.96
2004 52.60
2005 53.31
2006 54.06
2007 54.84
2008 55.62
2009 56.38
2010 57.10
2011 57.76
2012 58.37
2013 58.94
2014 59.45
2015 59.92
2016 60.35
2017 60.77
2018 61.17
2019 61.58
2020 61.98

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