Japan - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Japan was 84.62 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 84.62 in 2020 and a minimum value of 67.67 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 67.67
1961 68.31
1962 68.59
1963 69.66
1964 70.13
1965 70.20
1966 70.99
1967 71.28
1968 71.61
1969 71.84
1970 71.95
1971 72.88
1972 73.51
1973 73.76
1974 74.39
1975 75.06
1976 75.46
1977 75.90
1978 76.04
1979 76.34
1980 76.09
1981 76.41
1982 76.92
1983 76.96
1984 77.37
1985 77.65
1986 78.06
1987 78.48
1988 78.40
1989 78.82
1990 78.84
1991 79.10
1992 79.15
1993 79.29
1994 79.69
1995 79.54
1996 80.20
1997 80.42
1998 80.50
1999 80.57
2000 81.08
2001 81.42
2002 81.56
2003 81.76
2004 82.03
2005 81.93
2006 82.32
2007 82.51
2008 82.59
2009 82.93
2010 82.84
2011 82.59
2012 83.10
2013 83.33
2014 83.59
2015 83.79
2016 83.98
2017 84.10
2018 84.21
2019 84.36
2020 84.62

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