Guinea-Bissau - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Guinea-Bissau was 58.63 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 58.63 in 2020 and a minimum value of 37.48 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 37.48
1961 37.75
1962 38.04
1963 38.35
1964 38.67
1965 39.00
1966 39.34
1967 39.68
1968 40.01
1969 40.33
1970 40.65
1971 40.96
1972 41.28
1973 41.60
1974 41.93
1975 42.26
1976 42.61
1977 42.97
1978 43.33
1979 43.70
1980 44.06
1981 44.40
1982 44.73
1983 45.05
1984 45.34
1985 45.63
1986 45.91
1987 46.19
1988 46.48
1989 46.78
1990 47.10
1991 47.41
1992 47.73
1993 48.04
1994 48.35
1995 48.66
1996 48.97
1997 49.30
1998 49.64
1999 50.00
2000 50.37
2001 50.74
2002 51.12
2003 51.50
2004 51.88
2005 52.28
2006 52.69
2007 53.14
2008 53.61
2009 54.11
2010 54.63
2011 55.14
2012 55.65
2013 56.12
2014 56.56
2015 56.96
2016 57.33
2017 57.67
2018 58.00
2019 58.32
2020 58.63

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