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.

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.

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 statistic depicts the median age of the population in the United Kingdom from 1950 to 2100*. The median age of a population is an index that divides the population into two equal groups: half of the population is older than the median age and the other half younger. In 2020, the median age of United Kingdom's population was 39.2 years. Population of the United Kingdom The United Kingdom (UK) includes Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) and Northern Ireland, and is a state located off the coast of continental Europe. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, which means the Queen acts as representative head of state, while laws and constitutional issues are discussed and passed by a parliament. The total UK population figures have been steadily increasing, albeit only slightly, over the last decade; in 2011, the population growth rate was lower than in the previous year for the first time in eight years. Like many other countries, the UK and its economy were severely affected by the economic crisis in 2009. Since then, the unemployment rate has doubled and is only recovering slowly. UK inhabitants tend to move to the cities to find work and better living conditions; urbanization in the United Kingdom has been on the rise. At the same time, population density in the United Kingdom has been increasing due to several factors, for example, the rising number of inhabitants and their life expectancy at birth, an increasing fertility rate, and a very low number of emigrants. In fact, the United Kingdom is now among the 20 countries with the highest life expectancy at birth worldwide. As can be seen above, the median age of UK residents has also been increasing significantly since the seventies; another indicator for a well-working economy and society.

At the beginning of the 1840s, life expectancy from birth in Ireland was just over 38 years. However, this figure would see a dramatic decline with the beginning of the Great Famine in 1845, and dropped below 21 years in the second half of the decade (in 1849 alone, life expectancy fell to just 14 years). The famine came as a result of a Europe-wide potato blight, which had a disproportionally devastating impact on the Irish population due to the dependency on potatoes (particularly in the south and east), and the prevalence of a single variety of potato on the island that allowed the blight to spread faster than in other areas of Europe. Additionally, authorities forcefully redirected much of the country's surplus grain to the British mainland, which exacerbated the situation. Within five years, mass starvation would contribute to the deaths of over one million people on the island, while a further one million would emigrate; this also created a legacy of emigration from Ireland, which saw the population continue to fall until the mid-1900s, and the total population of the island is still well below its pre-famine level of 8.5 million people.

Following the end of the Great Famine, life expectancy would begin to gradually increase in Ireland, as post-famine reforms would see improvements in the living standards of the country’s peasantry, most notably the Land Wars, a largely successful series of strikes, boycotts and protests aimed at reform of the country's agricultural land distribution, which began in the 1870s and lasted into the 20th century. As these reforms were implemented, life expectancy in Ireland would rise to more than fifty years by the turn of the century. While this rise would slow somewhat in the 1910s, due to the large number of Irish soldiers who fought in the First World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic, as well as the period of civil unrest leading up to the island's partition in 1921, life expectancy in Ireland would rise greatly in the 20th century. In the second half of the 20th century, Ireland's healthcare system and living standards developed similarly to the rest of Western Europe, and today, it is often ranks among the top countries globally in terms of human development, GDP and quality of healthcare. With these developments, the increase in life expectancy from birth in Ireland was relatively constant in the first century of independence, and in 2020 is estimated to be 82 years.

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

Between 1953 and 2021, the death rate of the United Kingdom fluctuated between a high of 12.2 deaths per 1,000 people in 1962 and a low of 8.7 in 2011. From 2011 onwards, the death rate creeped up slightly and, in 2020, reached 10.3 deaths per 1,000 people. In 2021, the most recent year provided here, the death rate was ten, a decline from 2020 but still higher than in almost every year in the twenty-first century. The recent spike in the death rate corresponds to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK, with the first cases recorded in early 2020. Most deaths since 1918 in 2020 In 2020, there were 689,629 deaths in the United Kingdom, the highest in more than a century. Although there were fewer deaths in 2021, at 667,479, this was still far higher than in recent years. When looking at the weekly deaths in England and Wales for this time period, two periods stand out for reporting far more deaths than usual. The first period was between weeks 13 and 22 of 2020, which saw two weeks in late April report more than 20,000 deaths. Excess deaths for the week ending April 17, 2020, were 11,854, and 11,539 for the following week. Another wave of deaths occurred in January 2021, when there were more than 18,000 deaths per week between weeks three and five of that year. Improvements to life expectancy slowing Between 2020 and 2022, life expectancy in the United Kingdom was approximately 82.57 years for women and 78.57 years for men. Compared with life expectancy in 1980/82 this marked an increase of around six years for women and almost eight years for men. Despite these long-term developments, improvements to life expectancy have been slowing in recent years, and have declined since 2017/19. As of 2022, the country with the highest life expectancy in the World was Japan, which was 84.5 years, followed by South Korea, at 83.6 years.

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.

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.

There were 10,075 deaths registered in England and Wales for the week ending June 27, 2025, compared with 10,411 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.

Life expectancy in China was just 32 in the year 1850, and over the course of the next 170 years, it is expected to more than double to 76.6 years in 2020. Between 1850 and 1950, finding reliable data proved difficult for anthropologists, however some events, such as the Taiping Rebellion and Dungan Revolt in the nineteenth century did reduce life expectancy by a few years, and also the Chinese Civil War and Second World War in the first half of the twentieth century. In the second half of the 1900s, Chinese life expectancy increased greatly, as the country became more industrialized and the standard of living increased.

The child mortality rate in the United Kingdom, for children under the age of five, was 329 deaths per thousand births in 1800. This means that approximately one in every three children born in 1800 did not make it to their fifth birthday. Over the course of the next 220 years, this number has dropped drastically, particularly in the first half of the twentieth century, and the rate has dropped to its lowest point ever in 2020 where it is just four deaths per thousand births.

There were 694,685 live births recorded in the United Kingdom in 2021, compared with 681,560 in the previous year. Between 1887 and 2021 the year with the highest number of live births was 1920 when there were approximately 1.13 million births, while the year with the fewest births was 1977, when there were just 657,038 births. Birth rate at a historic low in 2020 At 10.2 births per 1,000 people, the birth rate of the United Kingdom in 2020 was at a historic low. After witnessing a twenty-first century high of 12.9 in 2010, the birth rate gradually declined before a sharp decrease was recorded between 2012 and 2013. Although there was a slight uptick in the birth rate in 2021, when there were 10.4 births per 1,000 people, the total fertility rate reached a low of 1.53 births per woman in the same year. As well as falling birth and fertility rates, the average age of mothers has been increasing. In 1991, the average age of mothers at childbirth was 27.7 years, compared with 30.9 years in 2021. UK population reaches 67 million In 2022, the overall population of the United Kingdom was almost 67.6 million people. Of the four countries that comprise the UK, England has by far the highest population, at 57.1 million, compared with 5.45 million in Scotland, 3.13 million in Wales, and 1.91 million in Northern Ireland. These countries are far less densely populated than England, especially when compared to London, which had approximately 5,630 people per square kilometer, compared with just 70 in Scotland. After London, North West England was the second-most densely populated area of the UK, which includes the large metropolitan areas of the cities of Manchester, and Liverpool

Between 1991 and 2021 there has been a clear trend of mothers having children later in life in the United Kingdom, with the average age of mothers in the increasing from 27.7 in 1991 to 30.9 by 2021.

In 1865, the average person born in Bangladesh could expect to live to just over the age of 25 years old. This figure would gradually decline throughout the remainder of the 19th century, falling to just over 20 years by 1900, as the Bengal region of British Raj would see several severe famines in this time period. However, life expectancy would begin to increase gradually in the early 1900s, outside of a small decline in the late 1910s from the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic. Beginning in the 1930s, life expectancy in Bangladesh would begin to grow rapidly, as wartime exports and industrialization would lead to significant improvements in standards of living in the region. This growth would continue steadily throughout the rest of the century, declining only with the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971. As access to and quality of healthcare in Bangladesh continuously improves, in 2020, the average person born in Bangladesh can expect to live to just over the age of 72 years old, which is higher than most other countries on the Indian subcontinent.

In 2021 the live birth rate of the United Kingdom fell to 10.4 births per 1,000 population, the lowest it had been during this time period. The UK's birth rate has been declining steadily since 2010 when the birth rate was 12.9 births per 1,000 population. After 1938, the year with the highest birth rate in the UK was 1947, when the crude birth rate was 21.2 births per 1,000 population. Under two children per mother in 2021 The most recent crude live birth rate for this statistic is based on the 694,685 births, that occurred in 2021 as well as the mid-year population estimate of 67 million for the United Kingdom. It has a close relation to the fertility rate which estimates the average number of children women are expected to have in their lifetime, which was 1.53 in this reporting year. Among the constituent countries of the UK, Northern Ireland had the highest birth rate at 11.6, followed by England at 10.5, Wales at 9.3, and Scotland at 8.7. International comparisons The UK is not alone in seeing its birth and fertility rates decline dramatically in recent decades. Across the globe, fertility rates have fallen noticeably since the 1960s, with the fertility rate for Asia, Europe, and the Americas being below two in 2021. As of this year, the global fertility rate was 2.31, and was by far the highest in Africa, which had a fertility rate of 4.12, although this too has fallen from a high of 6.72 in the late 1960s. A reduction in infant mortality, as well as better access to contraception, are factors that have typically influenced declining fertility rates recently.

As of July 2024, Nigeria's population was estimated at around 229.5 million. Between 1965 and 2024, the number of people living in Nigeria increased at an average rate of over two percent. In 2024, the population grew by 2.42 percent compared to the previous year. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. By extension, the African continent records the highest growth rate in the world. Africa's most populous country Nigeria was the most populous country in Africa as of 2023. As of 2022, Lagos held the distinction of being Nigeria's biggest urban center, a status it also retained as the largest city across all of sub-Saharan Africa. The city boasted an excess of 17.5 million residents. Notably, Lagos assumed the pivotal roles of the nation's primary financial hub, cultural epicenter, and educational nucleus. Furthermore, Lagos was one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. Nigeria's youthful population In Nigeria, a significant 50 percent of the populace is under the age of 19. The most prominent age bracket is constituted by those up to four years old: comprising 8.3 percent of men and eight percent of women as of 2021. Nigeria boasts one of the world's most youthful populations. On a broader scale, both within Africa and internationally, Niger maintains the lowest median age record. Nigeria secures the 20th position in global rankings. Furthermore, the life expectancy in Nigeria is an average of 62 years old. However, this is different between men and women. The main causes of death have been neonatal disorders, malaria, and diarrheal diseases.

It is presumed that the first humans migrated from Siberia to North America approximately twelve thousand years ago, where they then moved southwards to warmer lands. It was not until many centuries later that humans returned to the north and began to settle regions that are now part of Canada. Despite a few short-lived Viking settlements on Newfoundland around the turn of the first millennium CE, the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto (John Cabot), became the first European to explore the coast of North America in the late 1400s. The French and British crowns both made claims to areas of Canada throughout the sixteenth century, but real colonization and settlement did not begin until the early seventeenth century. Over the next 150 years, France and Britain competed to take control of the booming fur and fishing trade, and to expand their overseas empires. In the Seven Year's War, Britain eventually defeated the French colonists in North America, through superior numbers and a stronger agriculture resources in the southern colonies, and the outcome of the war saw France cede practically all of it's colonies in North America to the British.

Increased migration and declining native populations

The early 1800s saw a large influx of migrants into Canada, with the Irish Potato Famine bringing the first wave of mass-migration to the country, with further migration coming from Scandinavia and Northern Europe. It is estimated that the region received just shy of one million migrants from the British Isles alone, between 1815 and 1850, which helped the population grow to 2.5 million in the mid-1800s and 5.5 million in 1900. It is also estimated that infectious diseases killed around 25 to 33 percent of all Europeans who migrated to Canada before 1891, and around a third of the Canadian population is estimated to have emigrated southwards to the United States in the 1871-1896 period. From the time of European colonization until the mid-nineteenth century, the native population of Canada dropped from roughly 500,000 (some estimates put it as high as two million) to just over 100,000; this was due to a mixture of disease, starvation and warfare, instigated by European migration to the region. The native population was generally segregated and oppressed until the second half of the 1900s; Native Canadians were given the vote in 1960, and, despite their complicated and difficult history, the Canadian government has made significant progress in trying to include indigenous cultures in the country's national identity in recent years. As of 2020, Indigenous Canadians make up more than five percent of the total Canadian population, and a higher birth rate means that this share of the population is expected to grow in the coming decades.

Independence and modern Canada

Canadian independence was finally acknowledged in 1931 by the Statute of Westminster, putting it on equal terms with the United Kingdom within the Commonwealth; virtually granting independence and sovereignty until the Canada Act of 1982 formalized it. Over the past century, Canada has had a relatively stable political system and economy (although it was hit particularly badly by the Wall Street Crash of 1929). Canada entered the First World War with Britain, and as an independent Allied Power in the Second World War; Canadian forces played pivotal roles in a number of campaigns, notably Canada's Hundred Days in WWI, and the country lost more than 100,000 men across both conflicts. The economy boomed in the aftermath of the Second World War, and a stream of socially democratic programs such as universal health care and the Canadian pension plan were introduced, which contributed to a rise in the standard of living. The post war period also saw various territories deciding to join Canada, with Newfoundland joining in 1949, and Nunavut in 1999. Today Canada is among the most highly ranked in countries in terms of civil liberties, quality of life and economic growth. It promotes and welcomes immigrants from all over the world and, as a result, it has one of the most ethnically diverse and multicultural populations of any country in the world. As of 2020, Canada's population stands at around 38 million people, and continues to grow due to high migration levels and life expectancy, and a steady birth rate.