Japan - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in Japan was 87.74 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 87.74 in 2020 and a minimum value of 70.14 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. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also:

Year Value
1960 70.14
1961 70.83
1962 71.12
1963 72.26
1964 72.76
1965 72.85
1966 73.65
1967 73.94
1968 74.29
1969 74.62
1970 74.67
1971 75.49
1972 75.96
1973 75.96
1974 76.33
1975 76.85
1976 77.27
1977 77.86
1978 78.21
1979 78.75
1980 78.75
1981 79.17
1982 79.74
1983 79.84
1984 80.29
1985 80.57
1986 81.02
1987 81.48
1988 81.37
1989 81.84
1990 81.91
1991 82.22
1992 82.35
1993 82.50
1994 82.96
1995 82.84
1996 83.55
1997 83.82
1998 84.01
1999 83.90
2000 84.60
2001 84.90
2002 85.20
2003 85.33
2004 85.59
2005 85.49
2006 85.81
2007 85.99
2008 86.05
2009 86.44
2010 86.30
2011 85.90
2012 86.41
2013 86.61
2014 86.83
2015 86.99
2016 87.14
2017 87.26
2018 87.32
2019 87.45
2020 87.74

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