Life expectancy at birth equals the average number of years
a person born in a given country/state/region would live if mortality rates at
each age were to remain constant in the future. The life expectancy is calculated
separately for males and females as well as a combined figure. The figures
reflect the quality of healthcare in the places of birth as well as other
factors including ongoing wars, obesity, and HIV/AIDS infections etc.
Worldwide, the average life expectancy at birth (leb) was
67.88 years (65.71 years for males and 70.14 years for females) over the period
2005–2010 according to United Nations World Population Prospects 2010 Revision,
and 66.57 years (64.52 years for males and 68.76 years for females) for 2009
according to The World Fact
book 2009. Women on average
live longer than men in all countries, with the exception of few countries
namely, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Afghanistan.
As per the CIA Fact Book, the first rank among various entities (countries)
is of Monaco with overall leb as 89.73 years.
The leb for Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Australia, Italy, France,
Canada, spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Germany and UK is above 80 years, wheras for
USA and Peoples’ republic of China is 78.37 years and 73.47 years respectively. India’s leb is at 69.89 with rank of 146 and
it is above world’s average of 66.57 years.
All our neighboring countries are below the world’s average in this respect. It is very shocking to know that leb for
Afghanistan is at 45.02 years, Mozambique (41.18 years) and other countries
with below 40 years leb are Zambia (38.63 years), Angola (38.2 years) and
Swaziland (31.88 years). These countries
with very low leb are due to the reason of very high rates of HIV/AIDS
infection. In countries with high infant mortality rates, the life expectancy at birth
will be lower, and may be materially lower than that of a person who has
survived his or her first year of life.
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