From the mid-19th century until today, life expectancy at birth in the United States has roughly doubled, from 39.4 years in 1850 to 79.6 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 eight year drop during the American Civil War in the 1860s, a seven year drop during the Spanish Flu empidemic in 1918, and a 2.5 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 2010s, 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 1950s, 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.

This statistic shows the average life expectancy in North America for those born in 2022, by gender and region. In Canada, the average life expectancy was 80 years for males and 84 years for females.

Life expectancy in North America

Of those considered in this statistic, the life expectancy of female Canadian infants born in 2021 was the longest, at 84 years. Female infants born in America that year had a similarly high life expectancy of 81 years. Male infants, meanwhile, had lower life expectancies of 80 years (Canada) and 76 years (USA).

Compare this to the worldwide life expectancy for babies born in 2021: 75 years for women and 71 years for men. Of continents worldwide, North America ranks equal first in terms of life expectancy of (77 years for men and 81 years for women). Life expectancy is lowest in Africa at just 63 years and 66 years for males and females respectively. Japan is the country with the highest life expectancy worldwide for babies born in 2020.

Life expectancy is calculated according to current mortality rates of the population in question. Global variations in life expectancy are caused by differences in medical care, public health and diet, and reflect global inequalities in economic circumstances. Africa’s low life expectancy, for example, can be attributed in part to the AIDS epidemic. In 2019, around 72,000 people died of AIDS in South Africa, the largest amount worldwide. Nigeria, Tanzania and India were also high on the list of countries ranked by AIDS deaths that year. Likewise, Africa has by far the highest rate of mortality by communicable disease (i.e. AIDS, neglected tropics diseases, malaria and tuberculosis).

The dataset presents life expectancy at birth estimates based on annual complete period life tables for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia (D.C.) in 2020 for the total, male and female populations.

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.

Life expectancy at birth for males and females for Middle Layer Super Output Areas (MSOAs), Leicester: 2016 to 2020The average number of years a person would expect to live based on contemporary mortality rates.For a particular area and time period, it is an estimate of the average number of years a newborn baby would survive if he or she experienced the age-specific mortality rates for that area and time period throughout his or her life.Life expectancy figures have been calculated based on death registrations between 2016 to 2020, which includes the first wave and part of the second wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

In 1870, Brazil's life expectancy from birth was just 32 years; there was a slight increase over the next 65 years, with the only decrease coming in the 1910s during the Spanish Flu epidemic. The largest increases in life expectancy came in the 1940s, when it jumped by almost twelve years in this decade alone. Brazil's life expectancy from birth has increased steadily over the past fifty years, and life expectancy in 2020 is almost 76; more than double what it was in 1940.

Data for Figures and Tables in "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19"

cc-by Jonas Schöley, José Manuel Aburto, Ilya Kashnitsky, Maxi S. Kniffka, Luyin Zhang, Hannaliis Jaadla, Jennifer B. Dowd, and Ridhi Kashyap. "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19".

These are CSV files of data in the figures and tables published in the paper "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19".

50-e0diffT.csv

Figure 1: Life expectancy changes 2019/20 and 2020/21 across countries. The countries are ordered by increasing cumulative life expectancy losses since 2019. Grey dots indicate the average annual LE changes over the years 2015 through 2019.

51-arriagaT.csv

Figure 2: Age contributions to life expectancy changes since 2019 separated for 2020 and 2021. The position of the arrowhead indicates the total contribution of mortality changes in a given age group to the change in life expectancy at birth since 2019. The discontinuity in the arrow indicates those contributions separately for the years 2020 and 2021. Annual contributions can compound or reverse. The total life expectancy change from 2019 to 2021 in a given country is the sum of the arrowhead positions across age.

52-sexdiff.csv

Figure 3: Change in the female life expectancy advantage from 2019 through 2021. Blue colors indicate an increase and red colors a decrease in the female life expectancy advantage. Muted colors indicate non-significant changes.

53-e0diffcodT.csv

Figure 4: Life expectancy deficit in 2021 decomposed into contributions by age and cause of death. LE deficit is defined as observed minus expected life expectancy had pre-pandemic mortality trends continued.

55-vaxe0.csv

Figure 5: Years of life expectancy deficit during October through December 2021 contributed by ages <60 and 60+ against % of population twice vaccinated by October 1st in the respective age groups. LE deficit is defined as the counterfactual LE from a Lee-Carter mortality forecast based on death rates for the fourth quarter of the years 2015 to 2019 minus observed LE.

54-tab_arriaga.csv

Table 1: Months of life expectancy (LE) changes and deficits (labelled ES) since the start of the pandemic attributed to age-specific mortality changes (labelled AT). LE deficit is defined as observed minus expected life expectancy had pre-pandemic mortality trends continued.

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.

This dataset tracks the updates made on the dataset "U.S. State Life Expectancy by Sex, 2020" as a repository for previous versions of the data and metadata.

Life expectancy in Norway was 35 years in 1765, and over the course of the next 255 years, it is expected to have increased to 82.2 years by 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. These changes were a result of famine and influenza epidemics between 1765 and 1865, and again in the 1910s because of the Spanish Flu epidemic that spread across Europe.

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.

Period life expectancy by age and sex. Each life table is based on population estimates, births and deaths for a single year.

Graph and download economic data for Life Expectancy at Birth, Total for the United States (SPDYNLE00INUSA) from 1960 to 2023 about life expectancy, life, birth, and USA.

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🇬🇧 영국 English Life expectancy at birth for males and females for Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOAs), Leicester: 2016 to 2020The average number of years a person would expect to live based on contemporary mortality rates.For a particular area and time period, it is an estimate of the average number of years a newborn baby would survive if he or she experienced the age-specific mortality rates for that area and time period throughout his or her life.Life expectancy figures have been calculated based on death registrations between 2016 to 2020, which includes the first wave and part of the second wave of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Analysis of ‘Projected Mortality Tables 2020-2069: Life expectancy by age and sex (API identifier: 36775)’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from http://data.europa.eu/88u/dataset/urn-ine-es-tabla-t3-400-36775 on 07 January 2022.

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

Table of INEBase Projected Mortality Tables 2020-2069: Life expectancy by age and sex. Annual. National. Population Projections

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

Life expectancy (LE), healthy life expectancy (HLE), disability-free life expectancy (DFLE), Slope Index of Inequality (SII) and range by national deprivation deciles using the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2015 for data periods from 2011 to 2013 to 2015 to 2017, and the Index of Multiple Deprivation 2019 for data periods from 2016 to 2018 to 2018 to 2020: England, 2011 to 2013 to 2018 to 2020.

Life expectancy in Denmark was 33.3 in the year 1765, and over the course of the next 255 years, it is expected to have increased by almost fifty years, to 80.7 years in 2020. Although life expectancy has generally increased throughout Denmark's history, there were several times where the rate deviated from its previous trajectory. These changes were a result of the Napoleonic Wars and the First Cholera Pandemic in the early 1800s, and later because of the Spanish Influenza Epidemic of the 1910s.

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