Puerto Rico - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Puerto Rico was 80.09 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 80.09 in 2020 and a minimum value of 68.72 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 68.72
1961 68.94
1962 69.15
1963 69.36
1964 69.59
1965 69.87
1966 70.19
1967 70.52
1968 70.86
1969 71.20
1970 71.54
1971 71.86
1972 72.17
1973 72.46
1974 72.74
1975 72.98
1976 73.19
1977 73.36
1978 73.50
1979 73.61
1980 73.70
1981 73.80
1982 73.91
1983 74.04
1984 74.18
1985 74.31
1986 74.40
1987 74.43
1988 74.39
1989 74.30
1990 74.17
1991 74.04
1992 73.95
1993 73.92
1994 73.98
1995 74.12
1996 74.36
1997 74.66
1998 75.01
1999 75.38
2000 76.69
2001 77.07
2002 77.76
2003 78.07
2004 78.18
2005 78.30
2006 78.42
2007 78.43
2008 77.96
2009 78.19
2010 78.42
2011 78.64
2012 78.85
2013 79.03
2014 79.20
2015 79.35
2016 79.49
2017 79.63
2018 79.78
2019 79.93
2020 80.09

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