Guatemala - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Guatemala was 74.53 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 74.53 in 2020 and a minimum value of 46.70 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 46.70
1961 47.22
1962 47.75
1963 48.30
1964 48.86
1965 49.43
1966 50.03
1967 50.65
1968 51.27
1969 51.89
1970 52.50
1971 53.09
1972 53.65
1973 54.18
1974 54.68
1975 55.14
1976 55.58
1977 56.00
1978 56.42
1979 56.84
1980 57.27
1981 57.72
1982 58.18
1983 58.66
1984 59.15
1985 59.66
1986 60.18
1987 60.69
1988 61.21
1989 61.74
1990 62.26
1991 62.80
1992 63.35
1993 63.92
1994 64.50
1995 65.09
1996 65.68
1997 66.26
1998 66.82
1999 67.35
2000 67.85
2001 68.30
2002 68.72
2003 69.09
2004 69.44
2005 69.76
2006 70.08
2007 70.41
2008 70.75
2009 71.11
2010 71.48
2011 71.86
2012 72.24
2013 72.60
2014 72.94
2015 73.25
2016 73.54
2017 73.81
2018 74.06
2019 74.30
2020 74.53

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