Zambia - Life expectancy at birth, female (years)

The value for Life expectancy at birth, female (years) in Zambia was 67.24 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 60 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 67.24 in 2020 and a minimum value of 45.61 in 1997.

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

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Year Value
1960 48.11
1961 48.50
1962 48.86
1963 49.18
1964 49.48
1965 49.76
1966 50.05
1967 50.37
1968 50.72
1969 51.11
1970 51.53
1971 51.97
1972 52.41
1973 52.82
1974 53.20
1975 53.52
1976 53.78
1977 53.98
1978 54.13
1979 54.21
1980 54.25
1981 54.25
1982 54.22
1983 54.16
1984 54.05
1985 53.85
1986 53.51
1987 52.99
1988 52.31
1989 51.47
1990 50.53
1991 49.52
1992 48.52
1993 47.60
1994 46.81
1995 46.20
1996 45.80
1997 45.61
1998 45.61
1999 45.82
2000 46.22
2001 46.82
2002 47.59
2003 48.49
2004 49.52
2005 50.66
2006 51.92
2007 53.29
2008 54.75
2009 56.27
2010 57.79
2011 59.28
2012 60.71
2013 62.04
2014 63.25
2015 64.30
2016 65.17
2017 65.88
2018 66.45
2019 66.89
2020 67.24

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