Namibia - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Namibia was 64.05 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 64.05 in 2020 and a minimum value of 46.48 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 46.48
1961 47.23
1962 47.96
1963 48.66
1964 49.33
1965 49.96
1966 50.55
1967 51.12
1968 51.65
1969 52.16
1970 52.67
1971 53.18
1972 53.71
1973 54.26
1974 54.82
1975 55.37
1976 55.88
1977 56.34
1978 56.73
1979 57.07
1980 57.37
1981 57.69
1982 58.05
1983 58.46
1984 58.93
1985 59.45
1986 60.01
1987 60.56
1988 61.04
1989 61.42
1990 61.61
1991 61.53
1992 61.17
1993 60.52
1994 59.61
1995 58.48
1996 57.18
1997 55.81
1998 54.46
1999 53.23
2000 52.19
2001 51.40
2002 50.86
2003 50.59
2004 50.60
2005 50.93
2006 51.61
2007 52.59
2008 53.82
2009 55.21
2010 56.67
2011 58.09
2012 59.39
2013 60.51
2014 61.43
2015 62.12
2016 62.63
2017 63.02
2018 63.37
2019 63.71
2020 64.05

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