Over the past 160 years, life expectancy (from birth) in the United States has risen from 39.4 years in 1860, to 78.9 years in 2020. One of the major reasons for the overall increase of life expectancy in the last two centuries is the fact that the infant and child mortality rates have decreased by so much during this time. Medical advancements, fewer wars and improved living standards also mean that people are living longer than they did in previous centuries.

Despite this overall increase, the life expectancy dropped three times since 1860; from 1865 to 1870 during the American Civil War, from 1915 to 1920 during the First World War and following Spanish Flu epidemic, and it has dropped again between 2015 and now. The reason for the most recent drop in life expectancy is not a result of any specific event, but has been attributed to negative societal trends, such as unbalanced diets and sedentary lifestyles, high medical costs, and increasing rates of suicide and drug use.

This dataset of U.S. mortality trends since 1900 highlights the differences in age-adjusted death rates and life expectancy at birth by race and sex. Age-adjusted death rates (deaths per 100,000) after 1998 are calculated based on the 2000 U.S. standard population. Populations used for computing death rates for 2011–2017 are postcensal estimates based on the 2010 census, estimated as of July 1, 2010. Rates for census years are based on populations enumerated in the corresponding censuses. Rates for noncensus years between 2000 and 2010 are revised using updated intercensal population estimates and may differ from rates previously published. Data on age-adjusted death rates prior to 1999 are taken from historical data (see References below). Life expectancy data are available up to 2017. Due to changes in categories of race used in publications, data are not available for the black population consistently before 1968, and not at all before 1960. More information on historical data on age-adjusted death rates is available at https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality/hist293.htm. SOURCES CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, historical data, 1900-1998 (see https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality_historical_data.htm); CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, mortality data (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/deaths.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov). REFERENCES National Center for Health Statistics, Data Warehouse. Comparability of cause-of-death between ICD revisions. 2008. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality/comparability_icd.htm. National Center for Health Statistics. Vital statistics data available. Mortality multiple cause files. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm. Kochanek KD, Murphy SL, Xu JQ, Arias E. Deaths: Final data for 2017. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 68 no 9. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2019. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_09-508.pdf. Arias E, Xu JQ. United States life tables, 2017. National Vital Statistics Reports; vol 68 no 7. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2019. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr68/nvsr68_07-508.pdf. National Center for Health Statistics. Historical Data, 1900-1998. 2009. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/mortality_historical_data.htm.

Japan had the highest life expectancy at birth of the G7 countries between 2000 and 2024, reaching 84.9. On the other hand, life expectancy in the United States was 79.5 years, the only one of the seven where it was below 80. Life expectancy dropped in all G7 countries following the COVID-19 pandemic.

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.

The dataset contains the life expectancy of US population across all ages from 2000 to 2015. Data is based on official estimates of life expectancy. The age pattern of mortality is based on life tables from the Human Mortality Database.

In 2020/22, life expectancy at birth fell by almost 23 weeks for women and by over 37 weeks for men. During this provided time period the biggest improvements in life expectancy occurred in 2009/11, increasing by almost 54 weeks for men and just over 42 weeks for women.

This table contains 2394 series, with data for years 1991 - 1991 (not all combinations necessarily have data for all years). This table contains data described by the following dimensions (Not all combinations are available): Geography (1 items: Canada ...), Population group (19 items: Entire cohort; Income adequacy quintile 1 (lowest);Income adequacy quintile 2;Income adequacy quintile 3 ...), Age (14 items: At 25 years; At 30 years; At 40 years; At 35 years ...), Sex (3 items: Both sexes; Females; Males ...), Characteristics (3 items: Life expectancy; High 95% confidence interval; life expectancy; Low 95% confidence interval; life expectancy ...).

Survival table by age on 1 January. Data available: 1996-2000. Status of the figures: The data in this table are final. Changes as of April 30, 2018: None, this table has been discontinued. When will new numbers come out? Not applicable anymore.

Chart and table of Germany life expectancy from 1950 to 2025. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

Global life expactancy at birth has risen significantly since the mid-1900s, from roughly 46 years in 1950 to 73.5 years in 2025. 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.

Jordan Vital Statistics: Life Expectancy at Birth data was reported at 73.500 Year in 2017. This stayed constant from the previous number of 73.500 Year for 2016. Jordan Vital Statistics: Life Expectancy at Birth data is updated yearly, averaging 73.000 Year from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2017, with 18 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 74.400 Year in 2014 and a record low of 69.000 Year in 2001. Jordan Vital Statistics: Life Expectancy at Birth data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Department of Statistics. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Jordan – Table JO.G006: Vital Statistics.

Chart and table of India life expectancy from 1950 to 2025. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

CN: Life Expectancy: Female: Chongqing data was reported at 81.640 Year Old in 12-01-2020. This records an increase from the previous number of 78.600 Year Old for 12-01-2010. CN: Life Expectancy: Female: Chongqing data is updated decadal, averaging 78.600 Year Old from Dec 2000 (Median) to 12-01-2020, with 3 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 81.640 Year Old in 12-01-2020 and a record low of 73.890 Year Old in 12-01-2000. CN: Life Expectancy: Female: Chongqing data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by National Bureau of Statistics. The data is categorized under China Premium Database’s Socio-Demographic – Table CN.GA: Population: Life Expectancy: By Region.

Analysis of ‘WHO national life expectancy ’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://www.kaggle.com/mmattson/who-national-life-expectancy on 28 January 2022.

--- Dataset description provided by original source is as follows ---

Context

I am developing my data science skills in areas outside of my previous work. An interesting problem for me was to identify which factors influence life expectancy on a national level. There is an existing Kaggle data set that explored this, but that information was corrupted. Part of the problem solving process is to step back periodically and ask "does this make sense?" Without reasonable data, it is harder to notice mistakes in my analysis code (as opposed to unusual behavior due to the data itself). I wanted to make a similar data set, but with reliable information.

This is my first time exploring life expectancy, so I had to guess which features might be of interest when making the data set. Some were included for comparison with the other Kaggle data set. A number of potentially interesting features (like air pollution) were left off due to limited year or country coverage. Since the data was collected from more than one server, some features are present more than once, to explore the differences.

Content

A goal of the World Health Organization (WHO) is to ensure that a billion more people are protected from health emergencies, and provided better health and well-being. They provide public data collected from many sources to identify and monitor factors that are important to reach this goal. This set was primarily made using GHO (Global Health Observatory) and UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Culture Organization) information. The set covers the years 2000-2016 for 183 countries, in a single CSV file. Missing data is left in place, for the user to decide how to deal with it.

Three notebooks are provided for my cursory analysis, a comparison with the other Kaggle set, and a template for creating this data set.

Inspiration

There is a lot to explore, if the user is interested. The GHO server alone has over 2000 "indicators". - How are the GHO and UNESCO life expectancies calculated, and what is causing the difference? That could also be asked for Gross National Income (GNI) and mortality features. - How does the life expectancy after age 60 compare to the life expectancy at birth? Is the relationship with the features in this data set different for those two targets? - What other indicators on the servers might be interesting to use? Some of the GHO indicators are different studies with different coverage. Can they be combined to make a more useful and robust data feature? - Unraveling the correlations between the features would take significant work.

--- Original source retains full ownership of the source dataset ---

Armenia Vital Statistics: Life Expectancy at Birth: Female data was reported at 81.000 Person in 2023. This records an increase from the previous number of 78.300 Person for 2022. Armenia Vital Statistics: Life Expectancy at Birth: Female data is updated yearly, averaging 77.350 Person from Dec 2000 (Median) to 2023, with 24 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 81.000 Person in 2023 and a record low of 75.800 Person in 2000. Armenia Vital Statistics: Life Expectancy at Birth: Female data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Statistical Committee of the Republic of Armenia. The data is categorized under Global Database’s Armenia – Table AM.G003: Vital Statistics.

This dataset gives the average life expectancy and corresponding confidence intervals for each Chicago community area for the years 1990, 2000 and 2010. See the full description at: https://data.cityofchicago.org/api/views/qjr3-bm53/files/AAu4x8SCRz_bnQb8SVUyAXdd913TMObSYj6V40cR6p8?download=true&filename=P:\EPI\OEPHI\MATERIALS\REFERENCES\Life Expectancy\Dataset description - LE by community area.pdf

This dataset contains life expectancy and Potential Years of Life Lost (YPLL) statistics for country members of OECD (The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development), for OECD key partners and countries in accession negotiations with OECD. The estimated values of the two indicators, cover periods from 2000 to 2016.

Chart and table of Hong Kong life expectancy from 1950 to 2025. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.

Life Expectancy at Birth: Male: VR: Orenburg Region data was reported at 65.140 Year in 2023. This records a decrease from the previous number of 65.550 Year for 2022. Life Expectancy at Birth: Male: VR: Orenburg Region data is updated yearly, averaging 61.750 Year from Dec 1990 (Median) to 2023, with 34 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 66.620 Year in 2019 and a record low of 58.300 Year in 2000. Life Expectancy at Birth: Male: VR: Orenburg Region data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by Federal State Statistics Service. The data is categorized under Russia Premium Database’s Demographic and Labour Market – Table RU.GD011: Life Expectancy at Birth: by Region.

Chart and table of Latvia life expectancy from 1950 to 2025. United Nations projections are also included through the year 2100.