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

The value for Life expectancy at birth, male (years) in OECD members was 77.03 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 77.71 in 2019 and a minimum value of 64.43 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 64.43
1961 64.80
1962 64.77
1963 64.93
1964 65.29
1965 65.39
1966 65.62
1967 65.83
1968 65.69
1969 65.90
1970 66.22
1971 66.49
1972 66.78
1973 66.98
1974 67.40
1975 67.71
1976 67.97
1977 68.29
1978 68.43
1979 68.72
1980 68.78
1981 69.14
1982 69.49
1983 69.64
1984 69.91
1985 70.07
1986 70.36
1987 70.64
1988 70.80
1989 71.05
1990 71.20
1991 71.39
1992 71.68
1993 71.84
1994 72.13
1995 72.27
1996 72.72
1997 73.10
1998 73.35
1999 73.60
2000 73.93
2001 74.28
2002 74.45
2003 74.65
2004 75.05
2005 75.19
2006 75.49
2007 75.73
2008 75.91
2009 76.19
2010 76.39
2011 76.64
2012 76.79
2013 76.99
2014 77.26
2015 77.19
2016 77.33
2017 77.41
2018 77.52
2019 77.71
2020 77.03

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