Life Expectancy

As already discussed, the Human Development Index (HDI) combines three dimensions: life expectancy, knowledge and education (as measured by the adult literacy rate and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrollment ratio) and standard of living (as measured by GDP per capita). This post about development will concentrate on the global and national life expectancies that contribute to the HDI.

Life expectancy is basically the number of years that an individual is expected to live as determined by statistics. The life expectancy figures the HDI uses are those estimated at birth – which is the average number of years that a newborn would live under current mortality conditions. For example, life expectancy for females born in the United States in 1900 was forty-nine years. This means that if mortality conditions existing in 1900 did not change, baby girls born at that time would have lived, on average, until they were forty-nine. However, since mortality conditions can fluctuate, there is an additional measurement which can examine life expectancy at other ages. For example, life expectancy at age sixty is the average number of years of life remaining for someone who survives to age sixty, under mortality conditions prevailing at that time. Many factors can affect the life expectancy figures within a country. Life expectancy ranges from 82.12 years in Japan to 31.99 years in Swaziland. The major aspects that create such discrepancies are differences in public health, medical care, and diet from country to country. Other regional differences that can impact a nation’s life expectancy are race, climate, pollution levels, occupational structure, genetic disorders, obesity rates, and tobacco and alcohol use.

Trends in life expectancy

Life expectancy has steadily increased over the years. The average lifespan during the Bronze and Neolithic ages was 18-20 years. These figures can be somewhat deceiving when considering the high mortality rates of infanthood and childhood during those times. If pre-20th century individuals lived past their teenage years, they could expect to live to an age comparable to the life expectancy of today. During the Industrial Revolution, the life expectancy of children increased dramatically. The percentage of children born in London who died before the age of five decreased from 74.5% in 1730-1749 to 31.8% in 1810-1829.

Based on 2008 CIA World Factbook estimates, the current world average for life expectancy is 66.57 years (64.52 for males; 68.76 for females). The map to the right shows the global breakdown of life expectancy averages based on CIA estimates.

If global trends continue, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that by the year 2025, 26 countries will have a life expectancy at birth of above 80 years. It will be highest in Iceland, Italy, Japan and Sweden (82 years) followed by Australia, Canada, France, Greece, Netherlands, Singapore, Spain and Switzerland (81 years). It will be 80 years in Austria, Belgium, Barbados, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Luxembourg, Malta, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Other examples for 2025 include China (75 years), Russia (72 years), and India (71 years). The countries with the lowest life expectancies in 2025 will be Angola, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Chad, Mozambique, Niger and Somalia (60 years); Mali and Uganda (59 years); Gambia and Guinea (58 years); Afghanistan, Malawi and Rwanda (57 years); Guinea Bissau (56 years) and Sierra Leone (51 years).The graph below lists current life expectancy averages for selected nations (not included: territories, principalities, dependencies, or administrative regions - such as Macao, which if included would have the world's highest life expectancy at birth with an average of 84.36 years).

* There is a strong correlation between a country's life expectancy and its HDI value. With the exception of Israel, New Zealand, and Italy, every country with the highest life expectancy also possess a top ten HDI score (as seen in the previous post). Conversely, countries with very low life expectancy figures typically have very low HDI scores. Besides Swaziland and Angola, every country on this lowest life expectancy list is also considered to have low human development (below .5 HDI value).

References

Life expectancy. (2009, November 16). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy

List of countries by life expectancy. (2009, November 15). Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy

The World Factbook. (2008). Life expectancy at birth. Central Intelligence Agency. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

The World Health Report. (1998). Trends in life expectancy. World Health Organization. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/whr/1998/media_centre/press_release/en/index3.html