Kenya - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Kenya was 66.99 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 66.99 in 2020 and a minimum value of 46.76 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 46.76
1961 47.42
1962 48.06
1963 48.67
1964 49.26
1965 49.82
1966 50.36
1967 50.90
1968 51.45
1969 52.00
1970 52.56
1971 53.12
1972 53.67
1973 54.22
1974 54.75
1975 55.27
1976 55.80
1977 56.34
1978 56.87
1979 57.39
1980 57.88
1981 58.32
1982 58.68
1983 58.94
1984 59.09
1985 59.12
1986 59.01
1987 58.77
1988 58.42
1989 57.97
1990 57.41
1991 56.74
1992 55.97
1993 55.15
1994 54.31
1995 53.49
1996 52.71
1997 52.01
1998 51.45
1999 51.06
2000 50.92
2001 51.10
2002 51.61
2003 52.41
2004 53.48
2005 54.73
2006 56.09
2007 57.46
2008 58.76
2009 59.93
2010 60.96
2011 61.85
2012 62.66
2013 63.42
2014 64.14
2015 64.80
2016 65.39
2017 65.91
2018 66.34
2019 66.70
2020 66.99

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