Portugal - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Portugal was 80.98 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 81.68 in 2019 and a minimum value of 63.27 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 63.27
1961 63.69
1962 64.10
1963 64.50
1964 64.89
1965 65.28
1966 65.66
1967 66.05
1968 66.43
1969 66.81
1970 67.07
1971 66.77
1972 68.32
1973 67.52
1974 68.02
1975 68.31
1976 68.86
1977 70.01
1978 70.32
1979 71.17
1980 71.21
1981 71.61
1982 72.41
1983 72.27
1984 72.51
1985 72.81
1986 73.27
1987 73.67
1988 73.71
1989 74.27
1990 73.97
1991 74.01
1992 74.31
1993 74.51
1994 74.91
1995 75.31
1996 75.26
1997 75.41
1998 75.71
1999 75.96
2000 76.31
2001 76.81
2002 77.07
2003 77.22
2004 77.67
2005 78.07
2006 78.42
2007 78.32
2008 78.52
2009 78.73
2010 79.03
2011 80.47
2012 80.37
2013 80.72
2014 81.12
2015 81.12
2016 81.12
2017 81.42
2018 81.32
2019 81.68
2020 80.98

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