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.
What drives the variation between countries
Life expectancy at birth is sensitive to early-life mortality. A country with high infant and child mortality rates will show a low overall figure even if adults who survive to adulthood go on to live long lives. This is why addressing infant and child mortality has historically delivered the largest gains in national life expectancy statistics.
Among the key drivers that vary between countries:
- Healthcare access and quality. Universal health systems, vaccination coverage, and access to maternal care are associated with higher life expectancy at all ages.
- Nutrition and chronic disease burden. Diet-related conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and obesity reduce life expectancy in both high- and low-income countries.
- Smoking and alcohol rates. Countries with historically high male smoking prevalence — including many former Soviet states — show some of the largest male-female gaps in the table, since smoking-related deaths reduce male life expectancy disproportionately.
- Conflict, violence, and accidents. Countries experiencing active conflict or high rates of violence show lower male figures in particular, since young adult male deaths are concentrated in these categories.
- Sanitation and infectious disease. In lower-income settings, waterborne diseases, malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV remain major reducers of life expectancy compared to higher-income countries.
The male-female gap
In almost every country in the table, women outlive men. The gap ranges from a fraction of a year in some populations to over ten years in historically high-male-smoking societies. The biological component — women’s cardiovascular protection until menopause, and possible immune system advantages — is real but modest. Most of the observed gap in countries with large differences is behavioural and social: occupational hazards, higher male alcohol consumption, later care-seeking, and greater exposure to violence and accidents.
Sort by the Gap column to see which countries show the largest divergence.
Using the data
- Sort by Total for headline country comparisons.
- Sort by Female or Male to identify where one sex does unusually well or poorly relative to the global pattern.
- Treat differences of less than one year between countries as within the estimate’s uncertainty range — these are model-based estimates, not exact counts.
- Always check the publication date; WHO updates estimates periodically as new mortality data becomes available.