United Kingdom - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in United Kingdom was 80.90 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 81.30 in 2014 and a minimum value of 70.83 in 1963.

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 71.13
1961 70.88
1962 70.93
1963 70.83
1964 71.62
1965 71.62
1966 71.57
1967 72.12
1968 71.72
1969 71.72
1970 71.97
1971 72.27
1972 72.12
1973 72.32
1974 72.52
1975 72.72
1976 72.78
1977 73.22
1978 73.18
1979 73.28
1980 73.68
1981 74.03
1982 74.18
1983 74.38
1984 74.78
1985 74.63
1986 74.93
1987 75.28
1988 75.38
1989 75.58
1990 75.88
1991 76.08
1992 76.43
1993 76.39
1994 76.89
1995 76.84
1996 77.09
1997 77.21
1998 77.19
1999 77.39
2000 77.74
2001 77.99
2002 78.14
2003 78.45
2004 78.75
2005 79.05
2006 79.25
2007 79.45
2008 79.60
2009 80.05
2010 80.40
2011 80.95
2012 80.90
2013 81.00
2014 81.30
2015 80.96
2016 81.16
2017 81.26
2018 81.26
2019 81.20
2020 80.90

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