India - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in India was 69.89 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 69.89 in 2020 and a minimum value of 41.42 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 41.42
1961 42.03
1962 42.64
1963 43.25
1964 43.87
1965 44.50
1966 45.14
1967 45.78
1968 46.43
1969 47.08
1970 47.74
1971 48.40
1972 49.06
1973 49.72
1974 50.37
1975 51.01
1976 51.63
1977 52.22
1978 52.79
1979 53.32
1980 53.81
1981 54.27
1982 54.69
1983 55.07
1984 55.44
1985 55.80
1986 56.17
1987 56.55
1988 56.96
1989 57.40
1990 57.87
1991 58.35
1992 58.85
1993 59.35
1994 59.84
1995 60.32
1996 60.78
1997 61.23
1998 61.67
1999 62.09
2000 62.51
2001 62.91
2002 63.30
2003 63.70
2004 64.10
2005 64.50
2006 64.92
2007 65.35
2008 65.79
2009 66.24
2010 66.69
2011 67.13
2012 67.55
2013 67.93
2014 68.29
2015 68.61
2016 68.90
2017 69.17
2018 69.42
2019 69.66
2020 69.89

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