Gera Tools

Life Expectancy by Country Reference

WHO life expectancy at birth for all countries, by sex

Searchable reference table of WHO life expectancy at birth (total, male, female) for the world's countries, with sortable columns and a sex gap. Useful for demographers, planners, and writers.

What is life expectancy at birth?

It is the average number of years a newborn would live if mortality patterns at the time of birth stayed constant throughout its life. It is a period measure, not a forecast of any individual's lifespan.

Life expectancy at birth, country by country

This reference lists WHO estimates of life expectancy at birth for the world’s countries, split into total, male, and female figures, plus the female-minus-male gap. Life expectancy at birth is the single most widely cited summary of a population’s health: it captures the combined effect of infant mortality, disease burden, healthcare access, and lifestyle into one number of years.

How it works

Life expectancy at birth comes from a period life table. Statisticians take the age-specific death rates observed in a given year and ask: if a newborn experienced exactly those rates at every age for life, how long would it live on average? It is therefore a snapshot of today’s mortality, not a prediction. The total figure is a weighted blend of the male and female values, and the gap (female − male) reflects the near-universal survival advantage women hold over men.

Tips and notes

  • Sort by the Gap column to see where the male/female survival difference is largest — historically the former Soviet states show some of the widest gaps.
  • Use the total column for headline comparisons, but the split columns matter for pensions, insurance, and health planning.
  • These are estimates with uncertainty ranges; treat differences of under a year between countries as effectively a tie.