United Kingdom - Life expectancy at birth, male (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, male (years) in United Kingdom was 79.00 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 79.50 in 2018 and a minimum value of 67.90 in 1963.

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 68.20
1961 68.00
1962 68.00
1963 67.90
1964 68.60
1965 68.60
1966 68.50
1967 69.10
1968 68.70
1969 68.60
1970 68.90
1971 69.20
1972 69.10
1973 69.30
1974 69.50
1975 69.70
1976 69.80
1977 70.20
1978 70.20
1979 70.30
1980 70.70
1981 71.10
1982 71.30
1983 71.50
1984 71.90
1985 71.80
1986 72.10
1987 72.50
1988 72.60
1989 72.90
1990 73.10
1991 73.40
1992 73.80
1993 73.80
1994 74.30
1995 74.30
1996 74.60
1997 74.65
1998 74.80
1999 75.00
2000 75.40
2001 75.70
2002 75.90
2003 76.30
2004 76.60
2005 77.00
2006 77.20
2007 77.40
2008 77.60
2009 78.10
2010 78.50
2011 79.00
2012 79.10
2013 79.20
2014 79.50
2015 79.20
2016 79.40
2017 79.50
2018 79.50
2019 79.40
2020 79.00

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