São Tomé and Principe - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in São Tomé and Principe was 70.58 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 70.58 in 2020 and a minimum value of 50.38 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 50.38
1961 50.91
1962 51.43
1963 51.93
1964 52.42
1965 52.89
1966 53.36
1967 53.84
1968 54.33
1969 54.83
1970 55.36
1971 55.91
1972 56.47
1973 57.04
1974 57.60
1975 58.13
1976 58.62
1977 59.06
1978 59.44
1979 59.73
1980 59.93
1981 60.01
1982 59.99
1983 59.88
1984 59.69
1985 59.44
1986 59.16
1987 58.87
1988 58.61
1989 58.39
1990 58.25
1991 58.19
1992 58.21
1993 58.32
1994 58.51
1995 58.80
1996 59.17
1997 59.63
1998 60.16
1999 60.74
2000 61.37
2001 62.02
2002 62.69
2003 63.36
2004 64.02
2005 64.66
2006 65.27
2007 65.85
2008 66.41
2009 66.94
2010 67.43
2011 67.89
2012 68.31
2013 68.70
2014 69.05
2015 69.38
2016 69.67
2017 69.93
2018 70.17
2019 70.39
2020 70.58

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