Middle income - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Middle income was 72.17 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 72.17 in 2020 and a minimum value of 47.70 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 47.70
1961 48.22
1962 48.83
1963 49.55
1964 50.38
1965 51.31
1966 52.27
1967 53.21
1968 54.10
1969 54.91
1970 55.65
1971 56.31
1972 56.91
1973 57.50
1974 58.07
1975 58.59
1976 59.11
1977 59.60
1978 60.06
1979 60.48
1980 60.88
1981 61.25
1982 61.62
1983 61.94
1984 62.24
1985 62.57
1986 62.93
1987 63.22
1988 63.49
1989 63.73
1990 63.97
1991 64.20
1992 64.36
1993 64.52
1994 64.74
1995 64.98
1996 65.28
1997 65.59
1998 65.87
1999 66.11
2000 66.38
2001 66.66
2002 66.94
2003 67.22
2004 67.53
2005 67.83
2006 68.18
2007 68.52
2008 68.86
2009 69.22
2010 69.56
2011 69.91
2012 70.25
2013 70.57
2014 70.86
2015 71.14
2016 71.40
2017 71.65
2018 71.86
2019 72.06
2020 72.17

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