Canada - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Canada was 81.75 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 82.05 in 2019 and a minimum value of 71.13 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 71.13
1961 71.35
1962 71.37
1963 71.38
1964 71.78
1965 71.87
1966 72.00
1967 72.21
1968 72.35
1969 72.50
1970 72.70
1971 73.03
1972 72.93
1973 73.16
1974 73.24
1975 73.52
1976 73.86
1977 74.22
1978 74.53
1979 74.87
1980 75.08
1981 75.46
1982 75.76
1983 76.07
1984 76.22
1985 76.37
1986 76.52
1987 76.72
1988 76.92
1989 77.12
1990 77.42
1991 77.62
1992 77.72
1993 77.82
1994 77.83
1995 78.03
1996 78.18
1997 78.43
1998 78.63
1999 78.89
2000 79.14
2001 79.34
2002 79.49
2003 79.74
2004 79.89
2005 80.19
2006 80.34
2007 80.54
2008 80.70
2009 81.00
2010 81.25
2011 81.45
2012 81.65
2013 81.75
2014 81.80
2015 81.90
2016 81.90
2017 81.90
2018 82.05
2019 82.05
2020 81.75

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