Mauritania - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Mauritania was 65.13 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 65.13 in 2020 and a minimum value of 44.43 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 44.43
1961 45.13
1962 45.83
1963 46.53
1964 47.21
1965 47.87
1966 48.48
1967 49.03
1968 49.54
1969 49.99
1970 50.40
1971 50.79
1972 51.16
1973 51.54
1974 51.94
1975 52.36
1976 52.82
1977 53.31
1978 53.82
1979 54.36
1980 54.91
1981 55.49
1982 56.07
1983 56.64
1984 57.20
1985 57.74
1986 58.23
1987 58.67
1988 59.07
1989 59.41
1990 59.69
1991 59.91
1992 60.09
1993 60.23
1994 60.34
1995 60.43
1996 60.49
1997 60.55
1998 60.59
1999 60.64
2000 60.71
2001 60.79
2002 60.89
2003 61.02
2004 61.17
2005 61.35
2006 61.55
2007 61.78
2008 62.02
2009 62.27
2010 62.53
2011 62.80
2012 63.08
2013 63.37
2014 63.65
2015 63.94
2016 64.21
2017 64.46
2018 64.70
2019 64.93
2020 65.13

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