Senegal - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Senegal was 68.21 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 68.21 in 2020 and a minimum value of 38.22 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 38.22
1961 38.38
1962 38.46
1963 38.48
1964 38.45
1965 38.41
1966 38.39
1967 38.42
1968 38.56
1969 38.82
1970 39.23
1971 39.81
1972 40.56
1973 41.45
1974 42.44
1975 43.52
1976 44.64
1977 45.77
1978 46.87
1979 47.93
1980 48.94
1981 49.94
1982 50.94
1983 51.95
1984 52.95
1985 53.91
1986 54.81
1987 55.61
1988 56.28
1989 56.82
1990 57.20
1991 57.43
1992 57.53
1993 57.54
1994 57.48
1995 57.40
1996 57.34
1997 57.32
1998 57.38
1999 57.52
2000 57.79
2001 58.18
2002 58.68
2003 59.26
2004 59.91
2005 60.62
2006 61.37
2007 62.13
2008 62.88
2009 63.61
2010 64.28
2011 64.90
2012 65.45
2013 65.94
2014 66.37
2015 66.75
2016 67.08
2017 67.38
2018 67.67
2019 67.94
2020 68.21

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