Gabon - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Gabon was 66.69 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 66.69 in 2020 and a minimum value of 39.69 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 39.69
1961 40.08
1962 40.56
1963 41.15
1964 41.85
1965 42.65
1966 43.53
1967 44.44
1968 45.36
1969 46.26
1970 47.13
1971 47.97
1972 48.79
1973 49.61
1974 50.43
1975 51.23
1976 52.04
1977 52.85
1978 53.65
1979 54.45
1980 55.25
1981 56.06
1982 56.87
1983 57.67
1984 58.44
1985 59.15
1986 59.77
1987 60.27
1988 60.63
1989 60.87
1990 60.97
1991 60.94
1992 60.83
1993 60.66
1994 60.44
1995 60.18
1996 59.85
1997 59.48
1998 59.07
1999 58.65
2000 58.26
2001 57.97
2002 57.79
2003 57.76
2004 57.89
2005 58.18
2006 58.64
2007 59.23
2008 59.90
2009 60.64
2010 61.40
2011 62.17
2012 62.92
2013 63.65
2014 64.32
2015 64.91
2016 65.42
2017 65.84
2018 66.19
2019 66.47
2020 66.69

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