Mauritius - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Mauritius was 74.18 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 74.51 in 2017 and a minimum value of 58.75 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 58.75
1961 59.75
1962 60.63
1963 61.36
1964 61.93
1965 62.36
1966 62.64
1967 62.82
1968 62.93
1969 63.02
1970 63.12
1971 63.25
1972 63.44
1973 63.69
1974 64.00
1975 64.39
1976 64.86
1977 65.37
1978 65.91
1979 66.46
1980 66.97
1981 67.41
1982 67.77
1983 68.04
1984 68.23
1985 68.37
1986 68.50
1987 68.66
1988 68.86
1989 69.12
1990 69.40
1991 69.96
1992 70.06
1993 70.11
1994 70.16
1995 70.33
1996 70.32
1997 70.40
1998 70.61
1999 70.96
2000 71.66
2001 71.77
2002 71.97
2003 72.12
2004 72.27
2005 72.43
2006 72.43
2007 72.57
2008 72.57
2009 72.88
2010 72.97
2011 73.27
2012 73.86
2013 74.02
2014 74.19
2015 74.35
2016 74.39
2017 74.51
2018 74.42
2019 74.24
2020 74.18

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