World - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in World was 72.75 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 72.76 in 2019 and a minimum value of 52.58 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 52.58
1961 53.08
1962 53.49
1963 54.02
1964 54.69
1965 55.35
1966 56.08
1967 56.78
1968 57.39
1969 57.99
1970 58.58
1971 59.11
1972 59.60
1973 60.05
1974 60.54
1975 60.99
1976 61.41
1977 61.83
1978 62.19
1979 62.56
1980 62.84
1981 63.18
1982 63.51
1983 63.76
1984 64.02
1985 64.28
1986 64.58
1987 64.83
1988 65.03
1989 65.25
1990 65.43
1991 65.62
1992 65.77
1993 65.88
1994 66.09
1995 66.27
1996 66.56
1997 66.84
1998 67.09
1999 67.29
2000 67.55
2001 67.82
2002 68.07
2003 68.33
2004 68.65
2005 68.92
2006 69.26
2007 69.59
2008 69.90
2009 70.25
2010 70.56
2011 70.88
2012 71.17
2013 71.47
2014 71.75
2015 71.95
2016 72.19
2017 72.39
2018 72.57
2019 72.76
2020 72.75

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