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

The value for Life expectancy at birth, male (years) in Sri Lanka was 73.78 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 73.78 in 2020 and a minimum value of 57.34 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. (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 57.34
1961 57.71
1962 58.11
1963 58.55
1964 59.05
1965 59.61
1966 60.20
1967 60.79
1968 61.36
1969 61.90
1970 62.40
1971 62.86
1972 63.30
1973 63.71
1974 64.10
1975 64.48
1976 64.86
1977 65.25
1978 65.63
1979 65.99
1980 66.30
1981 66.51
1982 66.61
1983 66.58
1984 66.46
1985 66.29
1986 66.13
1987 66.03
1988 66.03
1989 66.13
1990 66.28
1991 66.40
1992 66.44
1993 66.35
1994 66.17
1995 65.99
1996 65.91
1997 66.04
1998 66.43
1999 67.06
2000 67.87
2001 68.77
2002 69.62
2003 70.34
2004 70.89
2005 71.25
2006 71.46
2007 71.59
2008 71.71
2009 71.84
2010 72.00
2011 72.17
2012 72.36
2013 72.54
2014 72.71
2015 72.89
2016 73.06
2017 73.24
2018 73.42
2019 73.60
2020 73.78

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