United States - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in United States was 80.20 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 81.40 in 2019 and a minimum value of 73.10 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 73.10
1961 73.60
1962 73.50
1963 73.40
1964 73.70
1965 73.80
1966 73.90
1967 74.30
1968 74.10
1969 74.40
1970 74.70
1971 75.00
1972 75.10
1973 75.30
1974 75.90
1975 76.60
1976 76.80
1977 77.20
1978 77.30
1979 77.80
1980 77.40
1981 77.80
1982 78.10
1983 78.10
1984 78.20
1985 78.20
1986 78.20
1987 78.30
1988 78.30
1989 78.50
1990 78.80
1991 78.90
1992 79.10
1993 78.80
1994 79.00
1995 78.90
1996 79.10
1997 79.40
1998 79.50
1999 79.40
2000 79.30
2001 79.50
2002 79.60
2003 79.70
2004 80.10
2005 80.10
2006 80.30
2007 80.60
2008 80.60
2009 80.90
2010 81.00
2011 81.10
2012 81.20
2013 81.20
2014 81.30
2015 81.20
2016 81.10
2017 81.10
2018 81.20
2019 81.40
2020 80.20

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