Sri Lanka - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Sri Lanka was 77.14 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 77.14 in 2020 and a minimum value of 59.37 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 59.37
1961 59.77
1962 60.18
1963 60.61
1964 61.08
1965 61.58
1966 62.10
1967 62.63
1968 63.14
1969 63.63
1970 64.10
1971 64.53
1972 64.93
1973 65.32
1974 65.69
1975 66.07
1976 66.46
1977 66.87
1978 67.31
1979 67.75
1980 68.17
1981 68.53
1982 68.80
1983 68.98
1984 69.06
1985 69.08
1986 69.09
1987 69.12
1988 69.21
1989 69.35
1990 69.51
1991 69.62
1992 69.64
1993 69.56
1994 69.40
1995 69.26
1996 69.24
1997 69.42
1998 69.85
1999 70.50
2000 71.33
2001 72.23
2002 73.09
2003 73.80
2004 74.34
2005 74.70
2006 74.90
2007 75.04
2008 75.16
2009 75.29
2010 75.44
2011 75.61
2012 75.80
2013 75.97
2014 76.15
2015 76.32
2016 76.48
2017 76.65
2018 76.81
2019 76.98
2020 77.14

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