Switzerland - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in Switzerland was 85.20 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 85.80 in 2019 and a minimum value of 74.09 in 1962.

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 74.11
1961 74.59
1962 74.09
1963 74.23
1964 75.11
1965 75.07
1966 75.25
1967 75.72
1968 75.52
1969 75.65
1970 76.16
1971 76.25
1972 76.82
1973 77.05
1974 77.56
1975 78.00
1976 78.13
1977 78.68
1978 78.66
1979 78.78
1980 78.85
1981 79.13
1982 79.44
1983 79.55
1984 80.03
1985 80.15
1986 80.30
1987 80.66
1988 80.73
1989 80.94
1990 80.71
1991 81.10
1992 81.33
1993 81.43
1994 81.71
1995 81.69
1996 82.00
1997 82.04
1998 82.50
1999 82.50
2000 82.60
2001 83.10
2002 83.10
2003 83.20
2004 83.70
2005 83.90
2006 84.00
2007 84.20
2008 84.40
2009 84.40
2010 84.50
2011 85.00
2012 84.90
2013 85.00
2014 85.40
2015 85.10
2016 85.60
2017 85.60
2018 85.70
2019 85.80
2020 85.20

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