Costa Rica - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Costa Rica was 80.47 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 80.47 in 2020 and a minimum value of 60.38 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 60.38
1961 61.02
1962 61.64
1963 62.24
1964 62.81
1965 63.35
1966 63.86
1967 64.36
1968 64.85
1969 65.34
1970 65.84
1971 66.38
1972 66.94
1973 67.54
1974 68.17
1975 68.83
1976 69.50
1977 70.18
1978 70.85
1979 71.50
1980 72.11
1981 72.68
1982 73.19
1983 73.66
1984 74.07
1985 74.43
1986 74.74
1987 75.01
1988 75.24
1989 75.46
1990 75.65
1991 75.84
1992 76.03
1993 76.21
1994 76.39
1995 76.58
1996 76.77
1997 76.95
1998 77.12
1999 77.29
2000 77.45
2001 77.60
2002 77.74
2003 77.87
2004 78.00
2005 78.12
2006 78.24
2007 78.36
2008 78.49
2009 78.63
2010 78.77
2011 78.92
2012 79.07
2013 79.23
2014 79.40
2015 79.57
2016 79.74
2017 79.91
2018 80.10
2019 80.28
2020 80.47

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