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 2021 for the total, male and female populations.

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 2019 for the total, male and female populations.

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.

The life expectancy for men aged 65 years in the U.S. has gradually increased since the 1960s. Now men in the United States aged 65 can expect to live 17 more years on average. Women aged 65 years can expect to live around 19.7 more years on average.

Life expectancy in the U.S.

As of 2021, the average life expectancy at birth in the United States was 76.33 years. Life expectancy in the U.S. had steadily increased for many years but has recently dropped slightly. Women consistently have a higher life expectancy than men but have also seen a slight decrease. As of 2019, a woman in the U.S. could be expected to live up to 79.3 years.

Leading causes of death

The leading causes of death in the United States include heart disease, cancer, unintentional injuries, chronic lower respiratory diseases and cerebrovascular diseases. However, heart disease and cancer account for around 38 percent of all deaths. Although heart disease and cancer are the leading causes of death for both men and women, there are slight variations in the leading causes of death. For example, unintentional injury and suicide account for a larger portion of deaths among men than they do among women.

Abstract

The Health Inequality Project uses big data to measure differences in life expectancy by income across areas and identify strategies to improve health outcomes for low-income Americans.

Section 7

This table reports life expectancy point estimates and standard errors for men and women at age 40 for each percentile of the national income distribution. Both race-adjusted and unadjusted estimates are reported.

Source

Section 13

This table reports life expectancy point estimates and standard errors for men and women at age 40 for each percentile of the national income distribution separately by year. Both race-adjusted and unadjusted estimates are reported.

Source

Section 6

This dataset was created on 2020-01-10 18:53:00.508 by merging multiple datasets together. The source datasets for this version were:

Commuting Zone Life Expectancy Estimates by year: CZ-level by-year life expectancy estimates for men and women, by income quartile

Commuting Zone Life Expectancy: Commuting zone (CZ)-level life expectancy estimates for men and women, by income quartile

Commuting Zone Life Expectancy Trends: CZ-level estimates of trends in life expectancy for men and women, by income quartile

Commuting Zone Characteristics: CZ-level characteristics

Commuting Zone Life Expectancy for larger populations: CZ-level life expectancy estimates for men and women, by income ventile

Section 15

This table reports life expectancy point estimates and standard errors for men and women at age 40 for each quartile of the national income distribution by state of residence and year. Both race-adjusted and unadjusted estimates are reported.

Source

Section 11

This table reports US mortality rates by gender, age, year and household income percentile. Household incomes are measured two years prior to the mortality rate for mortality rates at ages 40-63, and at age 61 for mortality rates at ages 64-76. The “lag” variable indicates the number of years between measurement of income and mortality.

Observations with 1 or 2 deaths have been masked: all mortality rates that reflect only 1 or 2 deaths have been recoded to reflect 3 deaths

Source

Section 3

This table reports coefficients and standard errors from regressions of life expectancy estimates for men and women at age 40 for each quartile of the national income distribution on calendar year by commuting zone of residence. Only the slope coefficient, representing the average increase or decrease in life expectancy per year, is reported. Trend estimates for both race-adjusted and unadjusted life expectancies are reported. Estimates are reported for the 100 largest CZs (populations greater than 590,000) only.

Source

Section 9

This table reports life expectancy estimates at age 40 for Males and Females for all countries. Source: World Health Organization, accessed at: http://apps.who.int/gho/athena/

Source

Section 10

This table reports life expectancy point estimates and standard errors for men and women at age 40 for each quartile of the national income distribution by county of residence. Both race-adjusted and unadjusted estimates are reported. Estimates are reported for counties with populations larger than 25,000 only

Source

Section 2

This table reports life expectancy point estimates and standard errors for men and women at age 40 for each quartile of the national income distribution by commuting zone of residence and year. Both race-adjusted and unadjusted estimates are reported. Estimates are reported for the 100 largest CZs (populations greater than 590,000) only.

Source

Section 8

This table reports US population and death counts by age, year, and sex from various sources. Counts labelled “dm1” are derived from the Social Security Administration Data Master 1 file. Counts labelled “irs” are derived from tax data. Counts labelled “cdc” are derived from NCHS life tables.

Source

Section 12

This table reports numerous county characteristics, compiled from various sources. These characteristics are described in the county life expectancy table.

Two variables constructed by the Cen

United States US: Mortality Rate: Adult: Male: per 1000 Male Adults data was reported at 133.993 Ratio in 2015. This records an increase from the previous number of 131.567 Ratio for 2014. United States US: Mortality Rate: Adult: Male: per 1000 Male Adults data is updated yearly, averaging 176.083 Ratio from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2015, with 56 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 240.957 Ratio in 1968 and a record low of 131.037 Ratio in 2013. United States US: Mortality Rate: Adult: Male: per 1000 Male Adults data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Health Statistics. Adult mortality rate, male, is the probability of dying between the ages of 15 and 60--that is, the probability of a 15-year-old male dying before reaching age 60, if subject to age-specific mortality rates of the specified year between those ages.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. (2) University of California, Berkeley, and Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. The Human Mortality Database.; Weighted average;

Life expectancy at birth, male (years) in United States was reported at 75.8 years in 2023, according to the World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially recognized sources. United States - Life expectancy at birth, male (years) - actual values, historical data, forecasts and projections were sourced from the World Bank on July of 2025.

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 ...).

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.

Life table data for "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 life tables over the years 2015 through 2021 across 29 countries analyzed in the paper "Bounce backs amid continued losses: Life expectancy changes since COVID-19".

40-lifetables.csv

Life table statistics 2015 through 2021 by sex, region and quarter with uncertainty quantiles based on Poisson replication of death counts. Actual life tables and expected life tables (under the assumption of pre-COVID mortality trend continuation) are provided.

30-lt_input.csv

Life table input data.

id: unique row identifier

region_iso: iso3166-2 region codes

sex: Male, Female, Total

year: iso year

age_start: start of age group

age_width: width of age group, Inf for age_start 100, otherwise 1

nweeks_year: number of weeks in that year, 52 or 53

death_total: number of deaths by any cause

population_py: person-years of exposure (adjusted for leap-weeks and missing weeks in input data on all cause deaths)

death_total_nweeksmiss: number of weeks in the raw input data with at least one missing death count for this region-sex-year stratum. missings are counted when the week is implicitly missing from the input data or if any NAs are encounted in this week or if age groups are implicitly missing for this week in the input data (e.g. 40-45, 50-55)

death_total_minnageraw: the minimum number of age-groups in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_maxnageraw: the maximum number of age-groups in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_minopenageraw: the minimum age at the start of the open age group in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_maxopenageraw: the maximum age at the start of the open age group in the raw input data within this region-sex-year stratum

death_total_source: source of the all-cause death data

death_total_prop_q1: observed proportion of deaths in first quarter of year

death_total_prop_q2: observed proportion of deaths in second quarter of year

death_total_prop_q3: observed proportion of deaths in third quarter of year

death_total_prop_q4: observed proportion of deaths in fourth quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q1: expected proportion of deaths in first quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q2: expected proportion of deaths in second quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q3: expected proportion of deaths in third quarter of year

death_expected_prop_q4: expected proportion of deaths in fourth quarter of year

population_midyear: midyear population (July 1st)

population_source: source of the population count/exposure data

death_covid: number of deaths due to covid

death_covid_date: number of deaths due to covid as of

death_covid_nageraw: the number of age groups in the covid input data

ex_wpp_estimate: life expectancy estimates from the World Population prospects for a five year period, merged at the midpoint year

ex_hmd_estimate: life expectancy estimates from the Human Mortality Database

nmx_hmd_estimate: death rate estimates from the Human Mortality Database

nmx_cntfc: Lee-Carter death rate projections based on trend in the years 2015 through 2019

Deaths

source:

STMF input data series (https://www.mortality.org/Public/STMF/Outputs/stmf.csv)

ONS for GB-EAW pre 2020

CDC for US pre 2020

STMF:

harmonized to single ages via pclm

pclm iterates over country, sex, year, and within-year age grouping pattern and converts irregular age groupings, which may vary by country, year and week into a regular age grouping of 0:110

smoothing parameters estimated via BIC grid search seperately for every pclm iteration

last age group set to [110,111)

ages 100:110+ are then summed into 100+ to be consistent with mid-year population information

deaths in unknown weeks are considered; deaths in unknown ages are not considered

ONS:

data already in single ages

ages 100:105+ are summed into 100+ to be consistent with mid-year population information

PCLM smoothing applied to for consistency reasons

CDC:

The CDC data comes in single ages 0:100 for the US. For 2020 we only have the STMF data in a much coarser age grouping, i.e. (0, 1, 5, 15, 25, 35, 45, 55, 65, 75, 85+). In order to calculate life-tables in a manner consistent with 2020, we summarise the pre 2020 US death counts into the 2020 age grouping and then apply the pclm ungrouping into single year ages, mirroring the approach to the 2020 data

Population

source:

for years 2000 to 2019: World Population Prospects 2019 single year-age population estimates 1950-2019

for year 2020: World Population Prospects 2019 single year-age population projections 2020-2100

mid-year population

mid-year population translated into exposures:

if a region reports annual deaths using the Gregorian calendar definition of a year (365 or 366 days long) set exposures equal to mid year population estimates

if a region reports annual deaths using the iso-week-year definition of a year (364 or 371 days long), and if there is a leap-week in that year, set exposures equal to 371/364*mid_year_population to account for the longer reporting period. in years without leap-weeks set exposures equal to mid year population estimates. further multiply by fraction of observed weeks on all weeks in a year.

COVID deaths

source: COVerAGE-DB (https://osf.io/mpwjq/)

the data base reports cumulative numbers of COVID deaths over days of a year, we extract the most up to date yearly total

External life expectancy estimates

source:

World Population Prospects (https://population.un.org/wpp/Download/Files/1_Indicators%20(Standard)/CSV_FILES/WPP2019_Life_Table_Medium.csv), estimates for the five year period 2015-2019

Human Mortality Database (https://mortality.org/), single year and age tables

In 2020, a newborn Hispanic child in the United States had a projected life expectancy of 77.9 years, the highest life expectancy among the ethnic groups studied. In comparison, the life expectancy at birth for a Black, non-Hispanic child in 2020 was 71.5 years.

United States US: Life Expectancy at Birth: Male data was reported at 76.300 Year in 2016. This stayed constant from the previous number of 76.300 Year for 2015. United States US: Life Expectancy at Birth: Male data is updated yearly, averaging 71.400 Year from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 76.500 Year in 2014 and a record low of 66.000 Year in 1968. United States US: Life Expectancy at Birth: Male data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s USA – Table US.World Bank: Health Statistics. Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision. (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot (various years), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.; Weighted average;

Mortality experience data from 2009 through 2013 on public pension plans in the United States

The total life expectancy at birth in the United States saw no significant changes in 2023 in comparison to the previous year 2022 and remained at around 78.39 years. However, 2023 marked the second consecutive increase of the life expectancy at birth. These figures refer to the expected lifespan of the average newborn in a given country or region, providing that mortality patterns at the time of birth remain constant thereafter.Find more statistics on other topics about the United States with key insights such as crude birth rate, life expectancy of women at birth, and life expectancy of men at birth.

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 2018 for the total, male and female populations.

United States US: Life Expectancy at Birth: Total data was reported at 78.690 Year in 2016. This stayed constant from the previous number of 78.690 Year for 2015. United States US: Life Expectancy at Birth: Total data is updated yearly, averaging 74.766 Year from Dec 1960 (Median) to 2016, with 57 observations. The data reached an all-time high of 78.841 Year in 2014 and a record low of 69.771 Year in 1960. United States US: Life Expectancy at Birth: Total data remains active status in CEIC and is reported by World Bank. The data is categorized under Global Database’s United States – Table US.World Bank.WDI: Health Statistics. Life expectancy at birth indicates the number of years a newborn infant would live if prevailing patterns of mortality at the time of its birth were to stay the same throughout its life.; ; (1) United Nations Population Division. World Population Prospects: 2017 Revision, or derived from male and female life expectancy at birth from sources such as: (2) Census reports and other statistical publications from national statistical offices, (3) Eurostat: Demographic Statistics, (4) United Nations Statistical Division. Population and Vital Statistics Reprot (various years), (5) U.S. Census Bureau: International Database, and (6) Secretariat of the Pacific Community: Statistics and Demography Programme.; Weighted average;

These tables contain life expectancy estimates by income and sex at the US state level.

Analysis of ‘U.S. State Life Expectancy by Sex, 2018’ provided by Analyst-2 (analyst-2.ai), based on source dataset retrieved from https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/53bd3de3-791d-4d5a-9897-ffe2ef288322 on 26 January 2022.

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

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 2018 for the total, male and female populations.

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

Life expectancy by sex, race/ethnicity, age; trends if available. Source: Santa Clara County Public Health Department, VRBIS, 2007-2016. Data as of 05/26/2017; U.S. Census Bureau; 2010 Census, Tables PCT12, PCT12H, PCT12I, PCT12J, PCT12K, PCT12L, PCT12M; generated by Baath M.; using American FactFinder; Accessed June 20, 2017. METADATA:Notes (String): Lists table title, notes and sourcesYear (Numeric): Year of dataCategory (String): Lists the category representing the data: Santa Clara County is for total population, sex: Male and Female, race/ethnicity: African American, Asian/Pacific Islander, Latino and White (non-Hispanic White only); United StatesAge, in years (Numeric): Life expectancy

As of 2023, the countries with the highest life expectancy included Switzerland, Japan, and Spain. As of that time, a new-born child in Switzerland could expect to live an average of **** years. Around the world, females consistently have a higher average life expectancy than males, with females in Europe expected to live an average of *** years longer than males on this continent. Increases in life expectancy The overall average life expectancy in OECD countries increased by **** years from 1970 to 2019. The countries that saw the largest increases included Turkey, India, and South Korea. The life expectancy at birth in Turkey increased an astonishing 24.4 years over this period. The countries with the lowest life expectancy worldwide as of 2022 were Chad, Lesotho, and Nigeria, where a newborn could be expected to live an average of ** years. Life expectancy in the U.S. The life expectancy in the United States was ***** years as of 2023. Shockingly, the life expectancy in the United States has decreased in recent years, while it continues to increase in other similarly developed countries. The COVID-19 pandemic and increasing rates of suicide and drug overdose deaths from the opioid epidemic have been cited as reasons for this decrease.