Life expectancy at birth, female (years) - Country Ranking - Central America & the Caribbean

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: Thematic map, Time series comparison

Find indicator:
Rank Country Value Year
1 Cayman Islands 84.70 2010
2 Puerto Rico 83.62 2020
3 Costa Rica 83.05 2020
4 Panama 81.90 2020
5 Cuba 80.86 2020
6 Barbados 80.58 2020
7 Dominica 78.80 2002
8 Antigua and Barbuda 78.23 2020
9 Nicaragua 78.19 2020
10 El Salvador 78.04 2020
11 Belize 77.99 2020
12 Honduras 77.72 2020
13 St. Lucia 77.72 2020
14 Dominican Republic 77.55 2020
15 Guatemala 77.37 2020
16 Trinidad and Tobago 76.35 2020
17 Jamaica 76.25 2020
18 The Bahamas 76.23 2020
19 St. Vincent and the Grenadines 75.26 2020
20 Grenada 74.98 2020
21 St. Kitts and Nevis 74.00 2002
22 Haiti 66.51 2020

More rankings: Africa | Asia | Central America & the Caribbean | Europe | Middle East | North America | Oceania | South America | World |

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