Sri Lanka - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in Sri Lanka was 80.40 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 80.40 in 2020 and a minimum value of 62.24 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. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Popu

See also:

Year Value
1960 62.24
1961 62.64
1962 63.01
1963 63.38
1964 63.76
1965 64.16
1966 64.57
1967 65.00
1968 65.41
1969 65.83
1970 66.23
1971 66.61
1972 66.97
1973 67.31
1974 67.64
1975 67.99
1976 68.37
1977 68.80
1978 69.29
1979 69.82
1980 70.36
1981 70.89
1982 71.37
1983 71.77
1984 72.10
1985 72.34
1986 72.54
1987 72.72
1988 72.89
1989 73.05
1990 73.19
1991 73.26
1992 73.24
1993 73.14
1994 72.99
1995 72.87
1996 72.90
1997 73.13
1998 73.60
1999 74.28
2000 75.12
2001 76.01
2002 76.85
2003 77.53
2004 78.04
2005 78.37
2006 78.54
2007 78.64
2008 78.72
2009 78.81
2010 78.93
2011 79.08
2012 79.24
2013 79.39
2014 79.54
2015 79.69
2016 79.84
2017 79.98
2018 80.12
2019 80.26
2020 80.40

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