In 2024, the average life expectancy in the world was 71 years for men and 76 years for women. The lowest life expectancies were found in Africa, while Oceania and Europe had the highest. What is life expectancy?Life expectancy is defined as a statistical measure of how long a person may live, based on demographic factors such as gender, current age, and most importantly the year of their birth. The most commonly used measure of life expectancy is life expectancy at birth or at age zero. The calculation is based on the assumption that mortality rates at each age were to remain constant in the future. Life expectancy has changed drastically over time, especially during the past 200 years. In the early 20th century, the average life expectancy at birth in the developed world stood at 31 years. It has grown to an average of 70 and 75 years for males and females respectively, and is expected to keep on growing with advances in medical treatment and living standards continuing. Highest and lowest life expectancy worldwide Life expectancy still varies greatly between different regions and countries of the world. The biggest impact on life expectancy is the quality of public health, medical care, and diet. As of 2022, the countries with the highest life expectancy were Japan, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Australia, all at 84–83 years. Most of the countries with the lowest life expectancy are mostly African countries. The ranking was led by the Chad, Nigeria, and Lesotho with 53–54 years.

Pivot table for healthy life expectancy by sex and area type, divided by three-year intervals starting from 2011 to 2013.

Life expectancy in the United Kingdom was below 39 years in the year 1765, and over the course of the next two and a half centuries, it is expected to have increased by more than double, to 81.1 by the year 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout the UK's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. These changes were the result of smallpox epidemics in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, new sanitary and medical advancements throughout time (such as compulsory vaccination), and the First world War and Spanish Flu epidemic in the 1910s.

Between 2021 and 2023, life expectancy for women in the United Kingdom was highest in the London borough of Kensington and Chelsea, at 86.46 years, while for men it was highest in Hart, at 83.44.

Male life expectancy at birth fell in all four countries of the United Kingdom in 2020-22 when compared with 2019/21. English men had a life expectancy of 78.83, compared with 76.52 in Scotland, 77.93 in Wales and 78.43 in Northern Ireland. In both England and Wales, life expectancy ticked up for the period 2021/23.

Period and cohort expectation of life in the UK using the principal projection by single year of age 0 to 100.

Mortality rates (qx) values from the national life tables release, presented in time series format. These statistics are for males and females for England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the UK.

Life expectancy at birth and at age 65, by sex, on a three-year average basis.

On average, women live almost 6 years more than men in France. In 2024, female life expectancy at birth in France reached **** years compared to ** years for males. In 2023, life expectancy in France, regardless of gender, was ***** years. Thus, France is one of the countries in the world with the highest life expectancy. Women outlive men According to the source, there are differences in life expectancy between men and women in France. In 2004, female life expectancy in France was ****, compared to ** years for males. Since then, life expectancy for both genders has been evolving similarly. When life expectancy decreased slightly in 2015, it affected both men and women. Similarly, when life expectancy increased. But one aspect remained the same: male life expectancy remains lower than female life expectancy. This difference has been seen not only in France. In Europe, females are expected to live longer than men in every region. While women in France have a longer life expectancy, they are also expected to have a higher number of healthy life years. In 2013, a study from Eurostat showed that French women had several expected healthy years of ****, compared to ** years for men. An aging population Like other Western countries, France has an aging population. French citizens aged 65 years and older are now more than the French aged from 0 to 14 years old. The median age of the population in the country has been increasing since the nineties, while the share of seniors reached almost ** percent of the population in 2013.

A global phenomenon, known as the demographic transition, has seen life expectancy from birth increase rapidly over the past two centuries. In pre-industrial societies, the average life expectancy was around 24 years, and it is believed that this was the case throughout most of history, and in all regions. The demographic transition then began in the industrial societies of Europe, North America, and the West Pacific around the turn of the 19th century, and life expectancy rose accordingly. Latin America was the next region to follow, before Africa and most Asian populations saw their life expectancy rise throughout the 20th century.

United Kingdom UK: Probability of Dying at Age 20-24 Years: per 1000 data was reported at 1.900 Ratio in 2019. This stayed constant from the previous number of 1.900 Ratio for 2018. United Kingdom UK: Probability of Dying at Age 20-24 Years: per 1000 data is updated yearly, averaging 2.650 Ratio from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2019, with 30 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 3.100 Ratio in 1991 and a record low of 1.800 Ratio in 2017. United Kingdom UK: Probability of Dying at Age 20-24 Years: per 1000 data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United Kingdom – Table UK.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Probability of dying between age 20-24 years of age expressed per 1,000 youths age 20, if subject to age-specific mortality rates of the specified year.; ; Estimates developed by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UNICEF, WHO, World Bank, UN DESA Population Division) at www.childmortality.org.; Weighted average; Aggregate data for LIC, UMC, LMC, HIC are computed based on the groupings for the World Bank fiscal year in which the data was released by the UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation.

This statistical release makes available the most recent monthly data on NHS-funded maternity services in England, using data submitted to the Maternity Services Data Set (MSDS). This is the latest report from the newest version of the data set, MSDS.v.2, which has been in place since April 2019. The new data set was a significant change which added support for key policy initiatives such as continuity of carer, as well as increased flexibility through the introduction of new clinical coding. This was a major change, so data quality and coverage initially reduced from the levels seen in earlier publications. MSDS.v.2 data completeness improved over time, and we are looking at ways of supporting further improvements. This publication also includes the National Maternity Dashboard, which can be accessed via the link below. Data derived from SNOMED codes is used in some measures such as those for birthweight, and others will follow in later publications. SNOMED data is also included in some of the published Clinical Quality Improvement Metrics (CQIMs), where rules have been applied to ensure measure rates are calculated only where data quality is high enough. System suppliers are at different stages of development and delivery to trusts. In some cases, this has limited the aspects of data that can be submitted in the MSDS. To help Trusts understand to what extent they met the Clinical Negligence Scheme for Trusts (CNST) Maternity Incentive Scheme (MIS) Data Quality Criteria for Safety Action 2 Year 6, we have been producing a CNST Scorecard Dashboard showing trust performance against this criteria. The final results for the CNST MIS Y6 SA2 assessment, using July 2024 data, are available in this dashboard, and can be accessed via the link below. This dashboard also includes the most recent data for August and September 2024, and also data for a few non-CNST MSDS data quality priorities, these will not be assessed as part of the Maternity Incentive Scheme. The percentages presented in this report are based on rounded figures and therefore may not total to 100%.

Since 2011, the average age of British citizens buying their first home in the United Kingdom (UK) increased by two years. In 2011, the average age for the country was 29, while in 2024, it reached ** years. Nevertheless, the average age varied in different regions.

There were 10,156 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending July 11, 2025, compared with 10,019 in the previous week. During this time period, the two weeks with the highest number of weekly deaths were in April 2020, with the week ending April 17, 2020, having 22,351 deaths, and the following week 21,997 deaths, a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. Death and life expectancy As of 2022, the life expectancy for women in the UK was just over 82.5 years, and almost 78.6 years for men. Compared with 1765, when average life expectancy was under 39 years, this is a huge improvement in historical terms. Even in the more recent past, life expectancy was less than 47 years at the start of the 20th Century, and was under 70 as recently as the 1950s. Despite these significant developments in the long-term, improvements in life expectancy stalled between 2009/11 and 2015/17, and have even gone into decline since 2020. Between 2020 and 2022, for example, life expectancy at birth fell by 23 weeks for females, and 37 weeks for males. COVID-19 in the UK The first cases of COVID-19 in the United Kingdom were recorded on January 31, 2020, but it was not until a month later that cases began to rise exponentially. By March 5 of this year there were more than 100 cases, rising to 1,000 days later and passing 10,000 cumulative cases by March 26. At the height of the pandemic in late April and early May, there were around six thousand new cases being recorded daily. As of January 2023, there were more than 24.2 million confirmed cumulative cases of COVID-19 recorded in the United Kingdom, resulting in 202,156 deaths.

Global life expectancy at birth has risen significantly since the mid-1900s, from roughly 46 years in 1950 to 73.2 years in 2023. Post-COVID-19 projections There was a drop of 1.7 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, between 2019 and 2021, however, figures resumed upon their previous trajectory the following year due to the implementation of vaccination campaigns and the lower severity of later strains of the virus. By the end of the century it is believed that global life expectancy from birth will reach 82 years, although growth will slow in the coming decades as many of the more-populous Asian countries reach demographic maturity. However, there is still expected to be a wide gap between various regions at the end of the 2100s, with the Europe and North America expected to have life expectancies around 90 years, whereas Sub-Saharan Africa is predicted to be in the low-70s. The Great Leap Forward While a decrease of one year during the COVID-19 pandemic may appear insignificant, this is the largest decline in life expectancy since the "Great Leap Forward" in China in 1958, which caused global life expectancy to fall by almost four years between by 1960. The "Great Leap Forward" was a series of modernizing reforms, which sought to rapidly transition China's agrarian economy into an industrial economy, but mismanagement led to tens of millions of deaths through famine and disease.

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex, region and Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), in the latest weeks for which data are available.

According to the 2021 Census, 62.9% (37.5 million) of the overall population of England and Wales was of ‘working age’ (between 16 and 64 years old).