The Gambia - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in The Gambia was 63.83 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 63.83 in 2020 and a minimum value of 33.29 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. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also:

Year Value
1960 33.29
1961 33.58
1962 33.92
1963 34.32
1964 34.79
1965 35.35
1966 35.98
1967 36.69
1968 37.46
1969 38.28
1970 39.13
1971 40.00
1972 40.88
1973 41.77
1974 42.64
1975 43.50
1976 44.34
1977 45.18
1978 46.02
1979 46.84
1980 47.66
1981 48.45
1982 49.23
1983 49.98
1984 50.69
1985 51.35
1986 51.93
1987 52.43
1988 52.86
1989 53.22
1990 53.54
1991 53.83
1992 54.13
1993 54.45
1994 54.79
1995 55.17
1996 55.58
1997 55.98
1998 56.38
1999 56.77
2000 57.15
2001 57.54
2002 57.93
2003 58.33
2004 58.74
2005 59.15
2006 59.55
2007 59.94
2008 60.31
2009 60.65
2010 60.96
2011 61.24
2012 61.51
2013 61.76
2014 62.02
2015 62.28
2016 62.55
2017 62.84
2018 63.15
2019 63.48
2020 63.83

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