Colombia - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Colombia was 77.46 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 77.46 in 2020 and a minimum value of 57.27 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 57.27
1961 57.81
1962 58.33
1963 58.83
1964 59.31
1965 59.78
1966 60.26
1967 60.73
1968 61.20
1969 61.68
1970 62.15
1971 62.63
1972 63.11
1973 63.58
1974 64.05
1975 64.52
1976 64.99
1977 65.48
1978 65.96
1979 66.45
1980 66.93
1981 67.38
1982 67.80
1983 68.19
1984 68.53
1985 68.82
1986 69.07
1987 69.27
1988 69.44
1989 69.59
1990 69.75
1991 69.94
1992 70.16
1993 70.43
1994 70.75
1995 71.11
1996 71.50
1997 71.89
1998 72.26
1999 72.62
2000 72.95
2001 73.24
2002 73.52
2003 73.78
2004 74.03
2005 74.27
2006 74.50
2007 74.73
2008 74.96
2009 75.19
2010 75.42
2011 75.66
2012 75.88
2013 76.11
2014 76.32
2015 76.53
2016 76.73
2017 76.93
2018 77.11
2019 77.29
2020 77.46

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