Zimbabwe - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Zimbabwe was 61.74 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 61.74 in 2020 and a minimum value of 43.07 in 2004.

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 53.02
1961 53.48
1962 53.95
1963 54.40
1964 54.85
1965 55.27
1966 55.67
1967 56.03
1968 56.36
1969 56.66
1970 56.91
1971 57.14
1972 57.33
1973 57.51
1974 57.69
1975 57.89
1976 58.15
1977 58.47
1978 58.85
1979 59.27
1980 59.73
1981 60.20
1982 60.65
1983 61.03
1984 61.28
1985 61.36
1986 61.20
1987 60.79
1988 60.14
1989 59.24
1990 58.10
1991 56.75
1992 55.24
1993 53.65
1994 52.04
1995 50.48
1996 49.01
1997 47.66
1998 46.47
1999 45.46
2000 44.65
2001 44.01
2002 43.52
2003 43.20
2004 43.07
2005 43.24
2006 43.85
2007 44.95
2008 46.50
2009 48.45
2010 50.64
2011 52.90
2012 55.03
2013 56.90
2014 58.41
2015 59.53
2016 60.29
2017 60.81
2018 61.20
2019 61.49
2020 61.74

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