OECD members - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in OECD members was 82.47 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 82.96 in 2019 and a minimum value of 70.15 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. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also:

Year Value
1960 70.15
1961 70.57
1962 70.60
1963 70.88
1964 71.31
1965 71.45
1966 71.76
1967 72.02
1968 72.11
1969 72.29
1970 72.60
1971 72.92
1972 73.22
1973 73.41
1974 73.82
1975 74.21
1976 74.51
1977 74.93
1978 75.16
1979 75.57
1980 75.63
1981 76.02
1982 76.36
1983 76.48
1984 76.78
1985 76.92
1986 77.16
1987 77.43
1988 77.57
1989 77.83
1990 78.05
1991 78.24
1992 78.51
1993 78.56
1994 78.86
1995 78.94
1996 79.23
1997 79.52
1998 79.70
1999 79.81
2000 80.05
2001 80.32
2002 80.47
2003 80.57
2004 80.96
2005 81.06
2006 81.33
2007 81.54
2008 81.65
2009 81.88
2010 82.02
2011 82.23
2012 82.31
2013 82.44
2014 82.67
2015 82.54
2016 82.69
2017 82.69
2018 82.78
2019 82.96
2020 82.47

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