United States - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in United States was 77.28 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 78.84 in 2014 and a minimum value of 69.77 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 69.77
1961 70.27
1962 70.12
1963 69.92
1964 70.17
1965 70.21
1966 70.21
1967 70.56
1968 69.95
1969 70.51
1970 70.81
1971 71.11
1972 71.16
1973 71.36
1974 71.96
1975 72.60
1976 72.86
1977 73.26
1978 73.36
1979 73.80
1980 73.61
1981 74.01
1982 74.36
1983 74.46
1984 74.56
1985 74.56
1986 74.61
1987 74.77
1988 74.77
1989 75.02
1990 75.21
1991 75.37
1992 75.62
1993 75.42
1994 75.62
1995 75.62
1996 76.03
1997 76.43
1998 76.58
1999 76.58
2000 76.64
2001 76.84
2002 76.94
2003 77.04
2004 77.49
2005 77.49
2006 77.69
2007 77.99
2008 78.04
2009 78.39
2010 78.54
2011 78.64
2012 78.74
2013 78.74
2014 78.84
2015 78.69
2016 78.54
2017 78.54
2018 78.64
2019 78.79
2020 77.28

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