Maldives - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Maldives was 79.21 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 79.21 in 2020 and a minimum value of 37.34 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 37.34
1961 37.94
1962 38.56
1963 39.21
1964 39.88
1965 40.56
1966 41.25
1967 41.95
1968 42.67
1969 43.40
1970 44.14
1971 44.91
1972 45.70
1973 46.52
1974 47.37
1975 48.25
1976 49.17
1977 50.12
1978 51.09
1979 52.07
1980 53.05
1981 54.00
1982 54.91
1983 55.79
1984 56.62
1985 57.42
1986 58.21
1987 59.01
1988 59.82
1989 60.66
1990 61.53
1991 62.41
1992 63.30
1993 64.19
1994 65.06
1995 65.92
1996 66.78
1997 67.64
1998 68.50
1999 69.35
2000 70.17
2001 70.96
2002 71.71
2003 72.40
2004 73.03
2005 73.61
2006 74.14
2007 74.62
2008 75.07
2009 75.50
2010 75.91
2011 76.29
2012 76.66
2013 77.02
2014 77.36
2015 77.69
2016 78.01
2017 78.33
2018 78.63
2019 78.92
2020 79.21

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