Upper middle income - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Upper middle income was 75.98 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 75.98 in 2020 and a minimum value of 49.87 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 49.87
1961 50.39
1962 51.04
1963 51.90
1964 52.99
1965 54.26
1966 55.61
1967 56.97
1968 58.25
1969 59.38
1970 60.40
1971 61.26
1972 61.99
1973 62.67
1974 63.30
1975 63.83
1976 64.36
1977 64.85
1978 65.30
1979 65.69
1980 66.08
1981 66.46
1982 66.83
1983 67.14
1984 67.40
1985 67.72
1986 68.09
1987 68.30
1988 68.49
1989 68.63
1990 68.76
1991 68.88
1992 68.90
1993 68.89
1994 69.04
1995 69.25
1996 69.55
1997 69.86
1998 70.14
1999 70.35
2000 70.60
2001 70.86
2002 71.11
2003 71.37
2004 71.66
2005 71.92
2006 72.26
2007 72.58
2008 72.86
2009 73.19
2010 73.47
2011 73.81
2012 74.12
2013 74.44
2014 74.71
2015 75.00
2016 75.27
2017 75.53
2018 75.75
2019 75.95
2020 75.98

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