Papua New Guinea - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Papua New Guinea was 64.73 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 64.73 in 2020 and a minimum value of 38.94 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 38.94
1961 39.54
1962 40.17
1963 40.82
1964 41.50
1965 42.20
1966 42.93
1967 43.68
1968 44.43
1969 45.17
1970 45.92
1971 46.65
1972 47.38
1973 48.11
1974 48.82
1975 49.51
1976 50.20
1977 50.87
1978 51.52
1979 52.15
1980 52.74
1981 53.28
1982 53.76
1983 54.20
1984 54.58
1985 54.93
1986 55.24
1987 55.55
1988 55.86
1989 56.17
1990 56.49
1991 56.82
1992 57.15
1993 57.47
1994 57.78
1995 58.07
1996 58.34
1997 58.59
1998 58.83
1999 59.05
2000 59.27
2001 59.49
2002 59.72
2003 59.97
2004 60.25
2005 60.53
2006 60.84
2007 61.14
2008 61.44
2009 61.74
2010 62.03
2011 62.32
2012 62.60
2013 62.89
2014 63.18
2015 63.47
2016 63.74
2017 64.01
2018 64.26
2019 64.50
2020 64.73

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