Vanuatu - Life expectancy at birth, total (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, total (years) in Vanuatu was 70.62 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 70.62 in 2020 and a minimum value of 48.98 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 48.98
1961 49.50
1962 50.03
1963 50.58
1964 51.13
1965 51.69
1966 52.26
1967 52.82
1968 53.37
1969 53.92
1970 54.45
1971 54.98
1972 55.51
1973 56.04
1974 56.58
1975 57.13
1976 57.68
1977 58.25
1978 58.82
1979 59.39
1980 59.96
1981 60.53
1982 61.09
1983 61.63
1984 62.16
1985 62.66
1986 63.13
1987 63.57
1988 63.99
1989 64.37
1990 64.72
1991 65.05
1992 65.35
1993 65.63
1994 65.90
1995 66.16
1996 66.41
1997 66.66
1998 66.90
1999 67.13
2000 67.36
2001 67.58
2002 67.79
2003 67.99
2004 68.18
2005 68.35
2006 68.52
2007 68.67
2008 68.82
2009 68.97
2010 69.12
2011 69.27
2012 69.42
2013 69.57
2014 69.72
2015 69.87
2016 70.02
2017 70.17
2018 70.32
2019 70.47
2020 70.62

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