From the mid-19th century until today, life expectancy at birth in the United States has roughly doubled, from **** years in 1850 to **** years in 2025. It is estimated that life expectancy in the U.S. began its upward trajectory in the 1880s, largely driven by the decline in infant and child mortality through factors such as vaccination programs, antibiotics, and other healthcare advancements. Improved food security and access to clean water, as well as general increases in living standards (such as better housing, education, and increased safety) also contributed to a rise in life expectancy across all age brackets. There were notable dips in life expectancy; with an ***** year drop during the American Civil War in the 1860s, a ***** year drop during the Spanish Flu empidemic in 1918, and a *** year drop during the Covid-19 pandemic. There were also notable plateaus (and minor decreases) not due to major historical events, such as that of the *****, which has been attributed to a combination of factors such as unhealthy lifestyles, poor access to healthcare, poverty, and increased suicide rates, among others. However, despite the rate of progress slowing since the *****, most decades do see a general increase in the long term, and current UN projections predict that life expectancy at birth in the U.S. will increase by another nine years before the end of the century.

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.

For most of the world, throughout most of human history, the average life expectancy from birth was around 24. This figure fluctuated greatly depending on the time or region, and was higher than 24 in most individual years, but factors such as pandemics, famines, and conflicts caused regular spikes in mortality and reduced life expectancy. Child mortality The most significant difference between historical mortality rates and modern figures is that child and infant mortality was so high in pre-industrial times; before the introduction of vaccination, water treatment, and other medical knowledge or technologies, women would have around seven children throughout their lifetime, but around half of these would not make it to adulthood. Accurate, historical figures for infant mortality are difficult to ascertain, as it was so prevalent, it took place in the home, and was rarely recorded in censuses; however, figures from this source suggest that the rate was around 300 deaths per 1,000 live births in some years, meaning that almost one in three infants did not make it to their first birthday in certain periods. For those who survived to adolescence, they could expect to live into their forties or fifties on average. Modern figures It was not until the eradication of plague and improvements in housing and infrastructure in recent centuries where life expectancy began to rise in some parts of Europe, before industrialization and medical advances led to the onset of the demographic transition across the world. Today, global life expectancy from birth is roughly three times higher than in pre-industrial times, at almost 73 years. It is higher still in more demographically and economically developed countries; life expectancy is over 82 years in the three European countries shown, and over 84 in Japan. For the least developed countries, mostly found in Sub-Saharan Africa, life expectancy from birth can be as low as 53 years.

Life expectancy in Canada was just below forty in the year 1800, and over the course of the next 220 years, it is expected to have increased by more than double to 82.2 by the year 2020. Throughout this time, life expectancy in Canada progressed at a steady rate, with the most noticeable changes coming during the interwar period, where the rate of increase was affected by the Spanish Flu epidemic and both World Wars.

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.

This dataset contains historical and projected life expectancy at birth for all countries, sourced from Gapminder. It covers years 1800 to 2100, with each column representing life expectancy for a specific year. The dataset is intended for data analysis, visualization, and predictive modeling. It includes geo-location information (country names) and is useful for global health and demographic studies.

File Name: gapminder_life_expectancy.csv

File Type: CSV

Rows: (number of countries × number of regions)

Columns: geo_name, 1800, 1801, …, 2100

Size: (324 KB)

Life expectancy in India was 25.4 in the year 1800, and over the course of the next 220 years, it has increased to almost 70. Between 1800 and 1920, life expectancy in India remained in the mid to low twenties, with the largest declines coming in the 1870s and 1910s; this was because of the Great Famine of 1876-1878, and the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-1919, both of which were responsible for the deaths of up to six and seventeen million Indians respectively; as well as the presence of other endemic diseases in the region, such as smallpox. From 1920 onwards, India's life expectancy has consistently increased, but it is still below the global average.

Variable description Life expectancy at birth is defined as the average number of years that a newborn could expect to live if he or she were to pass through life subject to the age-specific mortality rates of a given period.

Variable time span 1543 – 2019

Data published by James C. Riley (2005) – Estimates of Regional and Global Life Expectancy, 1800–2001. Issue Population and Development Review. Population and Development Review. Volume 31, Issue 3, pages 537–543, September 2005., Zijdeman, Richard; Ribeira da Silva, Filipa, 2015, "Life Expectancy at Birth (Total)", http://hdl.handle.net/10622/LKYT53, IISH Dataverse, V1, and UN Population Division (2019)

Topic Description:

Across the world, people are living longer.

In 1900, the average life expectancy of a newborn was 32 years. By 2021 this had more than doubled to 71 years.

But where, when, how, and why has this dramatic change occurred?

To understand it, we can look at data on life expectancy worldwide.

The large reduction in child mortality has played an important role in increasing life expectancy. But life expectancy has increased at all ages. Infants, children, adults, and the elderly are all less likely to die than in the past, and death is being delayed.

This remarkable shift results from advances in medicine, public health, and living standards. Along with it, many predictions of the ‘limit’ of life expectancy have been broken.

Data Description:

Data 1: Life expectancy has increased across the world. In 2021, the global average life expectancy was just over 70 years. This is an astonishing fact – because just two hundred years ago, it was less than half. This was the case for all world regions: in 1800, no region had a life expectancy higher than 40 years. The average life expectancy has risen steadily and significantly across all regions.

Data2: In 2021, Nigeria's life expectancy was thirty years lower than Japan’s. This striking fact reflects the wide differences in life expectancy between countries, which you can see on the map.

Data3: It’s a common misconception that life expectancy has only increased because of declines in child mortality. This is part of what happened. Child mortality used to be high and contributed significantly to short lifespans in the past, and it has declined greatly over time. But, especially in recent decades, child mortality declines have contributed much less to increasing life expectancy8, and large declines in mortality are seen across all age groups.

Context

Life expectancy at birth is defined as the average number of years that a newborn could expect to live if he or she were to pass through life subject to the age-specific mortality rates of a given period. The years are from 1950 to 2018.

Content

For regional- and global-level data pre-1950, data from a study by Riley was used, which draws from over 700 sources to estimate life expectancy at birth from 1800 to 2001.

Riley estimated life expectancy before 1800, which he calls "the pre-health transition period". "Health transitions began in different countries in different periods, as early as the 1770s in Denmark and as late as the 1970s in some countries of sub-Saharan Africa". As such, for the sake of consistency, we have assigned the period before the health transition to the year 1770. "The life expectancy values employed are averages of estimates for the period before the beginning of the transitions for countries within that region. ... This period has presumably the weakest basis, the largest margin of error, and the simplest method of deriving an estimate."

For country-level data pre-1950, Clio Infra's dataset was used, compiled by Zijdeman and Ribeira da Silva (2015).

For country-, regional- and global-level data post-1950, data published by the United Nations Population Division was used, since they are updated every year. This is possible because Riley writes that "for 1950-2001, I have drawn life expectancy estimates chiefly from various sources provided by the United Nations, the World Bank’s World Development Indicators, and the Human Mortality Database".

For the Americas from 1950-2015, the population-weighted average of Northern America and Latin America and the Caribbean was taken, using UN Population Division estimates of population size.

Acknowledgements

Life expectancy:

Data publisher's source: https://www.lifetable.de/RileyBib.pdf Data published by: James C. Riley (2005) – Estimates of Regional and Global Life Expectancy, 1800–2001. Issue Population and Development Review. Population and Development Review. Volume 31, Issue 3, pages 537–543, September 2005., Zijdeman, Richard; Ribeira da Silva, Filipa, 2015, "Life Expectancy at Birth (Total)", http://hdl.handle.net/10622/LKYT53, IISH Dataverse, V1, and UN Population Division (2019) Link: https://datasets.socialhistory.org/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=hdl:10622/LKYT53, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2005.00083.x/epdf, https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Standard/Population/ Dataset: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

GDP per capita:

Data publisher's source: The Maddison Project Database is based on the work of many researchers that have produced estimates of economic growth for individual countries. Data published by: Bolt, Jutta and Jan Luiten van Zanden (2020), “Maddison style estimates of the evolution of the world economy. A new 2020 update”. Link: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-project-database-2020 Dataset: https://ourworldindata.org/life-expectancy

Inspiration

The life expectancy vs GDP per capita analysis.

Throughout most of history, average life expectancy from birth was fairly consistent across the globe, at around 24 years. A major contributor to this was high rates of infant and child mortality; those who survived into adulthood could expect to live to their 50s or 60s, yet pandemics, food instability, and conflict did cause regular spikes in mortality across the entire population. Gradually, from the 16th to 19th centuries, there was some growth in more developed societies, due to improvements in agriculture, infrastructure, and medical knowledge. However, the most significant change came with the introduction of vaccination and other medical advances in the 1800s, which saw a sharp decline in child mortality and the onset of the demographic transition. This phenomenon began in more developed countries in the 1800s, before spreading to Latin America, Asia, and (later) Africa in the 1900s. As the majority of the world's population lives in countries considered to be "less developed", this figure is much closer to the global average. However, today, there is a considerable difference in life expectancies across these countries, ranging from 84.7 years in Japan to 53 years in the Central African Republic.

this graph was created in OurDataWorld:

https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F16731800%2F9f4d19e9175871ef598b4199e311e85d%2Fgraph1.png?generation=1715208322576301&alt=media" alt="">

https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F16731800%2F0fd67986587ae3ac9dbcd42909d0622e%2Fgraph2.png?generation=1715208328870307&alt=media" alt="">

https://www.googleapis.com/download/storage/v1/b/kaggle-user-content/o/inbox%2F16731800%2F43d2f32ca42d068a0f59882b585a6c9c%2Fgraph3.png?generation=1715208345753461&alt=media" alt="">

But where, when, how, and why has this dramatic change occurred?

To understand it, we can look at data on life expectancy worldwide.

The large reduction in child mortality has played an important role in increasing life expectancy. But life expectancy has increased at all ages. Infants, children, adults, and the elderly are all less likely to die than in the past, and death is being delayed.

This remarkable shift results from advances in medicine, public health, and living standards. Along with it, many predictions of the ‘limit’ of life expectancy have been broken.

On this page, you will find global data and research on life expectancy and related measures of longevity: the probability of death at a given age, the sex gap in life expectancy, lifespan inequality within countries, and more.

In 2021, the global average life expectancy was just over 70 years. This is an astonishing fact – because just two hundred years ago, it was less than half.

This was the case for all world regions: in 1800, no region had a life expectancy higher than 40 years.

The average life expectancy has risen steadily and significantly across all regions.1

This extraordinary rise is the result of a wide range of advances in health – in nutrition, clean water, sanitation, neonatal healthcare, antibiotics, vaccines, and other technologies and public health efforts – and improvements in living standards, economic growth, and poverty reduction.

In this article, we cover this in more detail:

Dataset

This dataset was created by Amar Prakash Pandey

Released under Data files © Original Authors

Contents

It is only in the past two centuries where demographics and the development of human populations has emerged as a subject in its own right, as industrialization and improvements in medicine gave way to exponential growth of the world's population. There are very few known demographic studies conducted before the 1800s, which means that modern scholars have had to use a variety of documents from centuries gone by, along with archeological and anthropological studies, to try and gain a better understanding of the world's demographic development. Genealogical records One such method is the study of genealogical records from the past; luckily, there are many genealogies relating to European families that date back as far as medieval times. Unfortunately, however, all of these studies relate to families in the upper and elite classes; this is not entirely representative of the overall population as these families had a much higher standard of living and were less susceptible to famine or malnutrition than the average person (although elites were more likely to die during times of war). Nonetheless, there is much to be learned from this data. Impact of the Black Death In the centuries between 1200 and 1745, English male aristocrats who made it to their 21st birthday were generally expected to live to an age between 62 and 72 years old. The only century where life expectancy among this group was much lower was in the 1300s, where the Black Death caused life expectancy among adult English noblemen to drop to just 45 years. Experts assume that the pre-plague population of England was somewhere between four and seven million people in the thirteenth century, and just two million in the fourteenth century, meaning that Britain lost at least half of its population due to the plague. Although the plague only peaked in England for approximately eighteen months, between 1348 and 1350, it devastated the entire population, and further outbreaks in the following decades caused life expectancy in the decade to drop further. The bubonic plague did return to England sporadically until the mid-seventeenth century, although life expectancy among English male aristocrats rose again in the centuries following the worst outbreak, and even peaked at more than 71 years in the first half of the sixteenth century.

About

This dataset retrieved from https://www.gapminder.org/data . All credit to the original author.

From 1800 until 2100, from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe: find out each life expectancy!

Life expectancy in France was below thirty in the late 1700s, but over the course of the next two and a half centuries it is expected to reach 82.5 by the year 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout France's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. The most noticeable changes were because of smallpox and influenza epidemics in the 1700s, medical advancements (such as vaccination and pasteurization) saw life expectancy increase in the 1800s, and then both World Wars and the epidemics that followed caused brief drops in the first half of the twentieth century.

Life expectancy in Belgium was 40 years in 1800, and over the course of the next 220 years, it is expected to increase by more than double, to 81.4 years in 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout Belgium's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. The most noticeable changes occurred because of both World Wars, and also because of the Spanish Influenza epidemic that followed WWI.

Life expectancy in Afghanistan remained below thirty in the nineteenth century, and it was not until the mid-1900s that life expectancy increased at a significantly higher rate, and by 2020, Afghanistan's life expectancy is expected to be just over 64 years. A noticeable drop in life expectancy appeared between 1915 and 1920, as the Spanish Flu epidemic that swept the globe impacted the population of Afghanistan severely. (A second drop can be observed in the early 1950s, however this is due to contrasting sources, as more recent data from the UN becomes available). Despite continuous war in the country since the late 1970s, medical advancements have brought Afghanistan's life expectancy closer to the global average in recent decades.

Life expectancy in Sweden was 36 in the year 1765, and over the course of the next 255 years, it is expected to have increased to 82.6 by 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout Sweden's history, there was a lot of fluctuation around the turn of the nineteenth century due to The Napoleonic Wars and First Cholera Epidemic, and again in the 1910s due to the Spanish Flu Epidemic.