Low income - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Low income was 64.05 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 64.05 in 2020 and a minimum value of 39.50 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 39.50
1961 39.94
1962 40.37
1963 40.81
1964 41.26
1965 41.72
1966 42.20
1967 42.68
1968 43.17
1969 43.65
1970 44.13
1971 44.59
1972 45.04
1973 45.48
1974 45.90
1975 46.30
1976 46.68
1977 47.04
1978 47.39
1979 47.73
1980 48.07
1981 48.40
1982 48.74
1983 49.08
1984 49.41
1985 49.71
1986 49.98
1987 50.20
1988 50.37
1989 50.50
1990 50.61
1991 50.74
1992 50.90
1993 51.10
1994 51.31
1995 51.54
1996 51.80
1997 52.11
1998 52.47
1999 52.89
2000 53.37
2001 53.90
2002 54.49
2003 55.11
2004 55.77
2005 56.44
2006 57.13
2007 57.82
2008 58.50
2009 59.14
2010 59.74
2011 60.30
2012 60.83
2013 61.32
2014 61.79
2015 62.24
2016 62.65
2017 63.03
2018 63.39
2019 63.73
2020 64.05

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