Costa Rica - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in Costa Rica was 83.05 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 83.05 in 2020 and a minimum value of 62.00 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 62.00
1961 62.71
1962 63.42
1963 64.11
1964 64.77
1965 65.41
1966 66.01
1967 66.60
1968 67.19
1969 67.77
1970 68.35
1971 68.94
1972 69.53
1973 70.14
1974 70.76
1975 71.39
1976 72.05
1977 72.72
1978 73.41
1979 74.09
1980 74.75
1981 75.37
1982 75.94
1983 76.45
1984 76.88
1985 77.25
1986 77.55
1987 77.79
1988 78.00
1989 78.18
1990 78.34
1991 78.49
1992 78.64
1993 78.78
1994 78.92
1995 79.07
1996 79.23
1997 79.38
1998 79.54
1999 79.69
2000 79.83
2001 79.97
2002 80.11
2003 80.24
2004 80.37
2005 80.49
2006 80.63
2007 80.77
2008 80.91
2009 81.07
2010 81.24
2011 81.41
2012 81.60
2013 81.79
2014 81.99
2015 82.18
2016 82.37
2017 82.56
2018 82.73
2019 82.89
2020 83.05

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