Arab World - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Arab World was 72.17 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 72.17 in 2020 and a minimum value of 46.55 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 46.55
1961 47.14
1962 47.73
1963 48.32
1964 48.91
1965 49.50
1966 50.07
1967 50.63
1968 51.18
1969 51.72
1970 52.26
1971 52.82
1972 53.41
1973 54.02
1974 54.64
1975 55.28
1976 55.91
1977 56.53
1978 57.13
1979 57.73
1980 58.35
1981 58.98
1982 59.64
1983 60.32
1984 61.00
1985 61.68
1986 62.31
1987 62.90
1988 63.43
1989 63.90
1990 64.35
1991 64.74
1992 65.04
1993 65.41
1994 65.79
1995 66.20
1996 66.55
1997 66.90
1998 67.22
1999 67.52
2000 67.80
2001 68.07
2002 68.34
2003 68.61
2004 68.89
2005 69.16
2006 69.44
2007 69.70
2008 69.94
2009 70.16
2010 70.35
2011 70.53
2012 70.70
2013 70.88
2014 71.06
2015 71.25
2016 71.44
2017 71.62
2018 71.81
2019 71.99
2020 72.17

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