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

The value for Life expectancy at birth, male (years) in Costa Rica was 77.95 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 77.95 in 2020 and a minimum value of 58.90 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 58.90
1961 59.47
1962 60.01
1963 60.53
1964 61.02
1965 61.48
1966 61.91
1967 62.32
1968 62.72
1969 63.13
1970 63.56
1971 64.05
1972 64.58
1973 65.17
1974 65.80
1975 66.48
1976 67.17
1977 67.86
1978 68.52
1979 69.14
1980 69.71
1981 70.22
1982 70.69
1983 71.11
1984 71.49
1985 71.83
1986 72.14
1987 72.41
1988 72.66
1989 72.89
1990 73.11
1991 73.32
1992 73.53
1993 73.74
1994 73.95
1995 74.16
1996 74.37
1997 74.58
1998 74.77
1999 74.96
2000 75.13
2001 75.29
2002 75.43
2003 75.56
2004 75.68
2005 75.79
2006 75.91
2007 76.02
2008 76.13
2009 76.25
2010 76.37
2011 76.49
2012 76.62
2013 76.75
2014 76.89
2015 77.03
2016 77.19
2017 77.35
2018 77.54
2019 77.74
2020 77.95

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