Statistics on how long people live

And, perhaps a bit more sweetly, people just tend to have better health if they're socializing with people. Why this is true is up for debate, but lots of studies support the basic idea. One study from Johns Hopkins even argues that younger people who assist older people also see some health benefits.

And, in what might be the biggest placebo effect of them all, having a sense of purpose is a big plus. Having some goals and responsibilities drives a lot of people to live years longer than people who feel lost or unimportant. This might be a career goal or a hobby, or even taking care of a pet.

The big thing is that, in countries with high life expectancy, their old people are more likely to feel engaged. This can be a cultural difference, or it can be geographical; old people are more likely to do things if they can physically get around.

One thing that you'll see on this list is that women almost universally have higher life expectancies than men. According to the World Health Organization , there are a couple reasons for this, cultural and biological. Biologically, women are less prone to certain cancers and heart diseases that cause a lot of deaths.

And, newborn girls are more likely to reach their first birthday. There are also some biological factors that just haven't been properly explained or identified. This isn't to say that women don't have their own medical problems, especially being misdiagnosed because of medical bias. But, these problems are less likely to be fatal. Culturally, women are less prone to risky behaviors and are less likely to die in a violent conflict per capita.

This includes all kinds of behavior, from smoking to drinking, and from picking fights to showing off via dangerous stunts. This might be why marriage has a positive effect on men's life expectancy, but no effect on women's; married men are less likely to do risky things than unmarried ones, while women are already less at risk regardless if they're married. In a lot of developed countries this gap is actually shrinking. This might be because we're getting better at treating heart disease.

Or, it might be because the push for gender equality has made it more acceptable for women to partake in risky behaviors like drinking. Or it might be both. We've given you some of the highlights in the sidebar, but here are the full rankings from the UN Human Development Report for Of the top 10 countries for highest life expectancy, four were in Europe and four were in Asia.

Israel was the only Middle Eastern country in the top 20; the next closest regional country was Lebanon at rank The highest ranking country in North America is Canada, at rank It's important to note that the life expectancy in Europe varies greatly between Western Europe and Eastern Europe; Estonia, which has a high expectancy for Eastern Europe, would rank quite low in Western Europe.

The life expectancy in these countries is low due to poor access to healthcare, especially for children and mothers, and to some ongoing armed conflicts. Updated October 19, Logan Chamberlain.

The places where people live the longest What Life Expectancy Means Average Life expectancy is a measure of how long the average person lives in a given country. What affects high life expectancy Low life expectancy might be largely driven by young deaths.

Gender differences, or, why men have lower life expectancies One thing that you'll see on this list is that women almost universally have higher life expectancies than men. The Rankings We've given you some of the highlights in the sidebar, but here are the full rankings from the UN Human Development Report for Women Men 1 Hong Kong Women Men Mali Men Women Monaco Since the global average life expectancy has more than doubled and is now above 70 years.

The inequality of life expectancy is still very large across and within countries. Why do women live longer than men?

Life expectancy is a measure of premature death and it shows large differences in health across the world. The population of many of the richest countries in the world have life expectancies of over 80 years.

In the life expectancy in Spain, Switzerland, Italy, and Australia was over 83 years. In Japan it was the highest with close to 85 years. In the countries with the worst health life expectancy is between 50 and 60 years.

The population of the Central African Republic has the lowest life expectancy in with 53 years. Use the slider below the map to see the change over time or click on any country to see the changing of life expectancy around the world. World Bank Data: Life expectancy. The three maps show the global history of life expectancy over the last two centuries.

Demographic research suggests that at the beginning of the 19 th century no country in the world had a life expectancy longer than 40 years. Almost everyone in the world lived in extreme poverty , we had very little medical knowledge, and in all countries our ancestors had to prepare for an early death.

Over the next years some parts of the world achieved substantial health improvements. A global divide opened. In the life expectancy for newborns was already over 60 years in Europe, North America, Oceania, Japan and parts of South America.

But elsewhere a newborn could only expect to live around 30 years. The global inequality in health was enormous in People in Norway had a life expectancy of 72 years, whilst in Mali this was 26 years.

Africa as a whole had an average life expectancy of only 36 years, while people in other world regions could expect to live more than twice as long. The decline of child mortality was important for the increase of life expectancy, but as we explain in our entry on life expectancy increasing life expectancy was certainly not only about falling child mortality — life expectancy increased at all ages.

Such improvements in life expectancy — despite being exclusive to particular countries — was a landmark sign of progress. It was the first time in human history that we achieved sustained improvements in health for entire populations. Many of us have not updated our world view. We still tend to think of the world as divided as it was in But in health — and many other aspects — the world has made rapid progress. Today most people in the world can expect to live as long as those in the very richest countries in The United Nations estimate a global average life expectancy of According to the UN estimates the country with the best health in was Norway with a life expectancy of The three maps summarize the global history of life expectancy over the last two centuries: Back in a newborn baby could only expect a short life, no matter where in the world it was born.

In newborns had the chance of a longer life if they were lucky enough to be born in the right place. In recent decades all regions of the world made very substantial progress, and it were those regions that were worst-off in that achieved the biggest progress since then. The divided world of has been narrowing. Globally the life expectancy increased from less than 30 years to over 72 years; after two centuries of progress we can expect to live much more than twice as long as our ancestors.

And this progress was not achieved in a few places. In every world region people today can expect to live more than twice as long. The global inequalities in health that we see today also show that we can do much better. The almost unbelievable progress the entire world has achieved over the last two centuries should be encouragement enough for us to realize what is possible.

This visualization shows the dramatic increase in life expectancy over the last few centuries as a line chart. For the UK — the country for which we have the longest time-series — we see that before the 19th century there was no trend for life expectancy: life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years.

Over the last years people in all countries in the world achieved impressive progress in health that lead to increases in life expectancy. In the UK, life expectancy doubled and is now higher than 80 years. In Japan health started to improve later, but the country caught up quickly with the UK and surpassed it in the late s.

In South Korea health started to improve later still and the country achieved even faster progress than the UK and Japan; by now life expectancy in South Korea has surpassed life expectancy in the UK. The chart also shows how low life expectancy was in some countries in the past: A century ago life expectancy in India and South Korea was as low as 23 years. A century later, life expectancy in India has almost tripled and in South Korea it has almost quadrupled.

You can switch to the map view to compare life expectancy across countries. This view shows that there are still huge differences between countries: people in Sub-Saharan countries have a life expectancy of less than 50 years, while in Japan it exceeds In the pre-modern, poor world life expectancy was around 30 years in all regions of the world.

The estimates by historian James Riley shown here suggest that there was some variation, between different world regions, but in all world regions life expectancy was well below 40 years. The historical estimates are associated with a considerable uncertainty — it is worth reading the work by Riley to understand the limitations and strengths of the estimates.

Infectious diseases raged in all parts of the world and as we show in our entry on child mortality almost half of all children died before they reached adulthood. And those that survived often died soon after. Without public health measures and without effective medicines diseases were killing most people at a very young age.

This was the reality for humanity until very recently. Life expectancy in each region of the world stayed fairly stable for most of history until humanity started to make progress against poor health just a few generations ago.

There is a lot of information in the following — rather unusual — chart. On the x-axis you find the cumulative share of the world population. And all the countries of the world are ordered along the x-axis ascending by the life expectancy of the population.

On the y-axis you see the life expectancy of each country. For red line you see that the countries on the left — India and also South Korea — have a life expectancy around On the very right you see that in no country had a life expectancy above 40 Belgium had the highest life expectancy with just 40 years. In the life expectancy of all countries was higher than in and the richer countries in Europe and North America had life expectancies over 60 years — over the course of modernization and industrialization the health of the population improved dramatically.

Therefore the world in was highly unequal in living standards — clearly devided between developed countries and developing countries. This division is ending: Look at the change between and !

Now it is the former developing countries — the countries that were worst off in — that achieved the fastest progress. While some countries mostly in Africa are lacking behind. But many of the former developing countries have caught up and we achieved a dramatic reduction of global health inequality.

The world developed from equally poor health in to great inequality in and back to more equality today — but equality on a much higher level. How to read the following graph: On the x-axis you find the cumulative share of the world population.

The countries are ordered along the x-axis ascending by the life expectancy of the population. Once past childhood, people would be expected to enjoy the same length of life as they did centuries ago. This, as we will see in the data below, is untrue. Life expectancy has increased at all ages. The average person can expect to live a longer life than in the past, irrespective of what age they are. The red line shows the life expectancy for a newborn.

Until the midth century a newborn could expect to live around 40 years. At times, even less. The rainbow-colored lines show how long a person could expect to live once they had reached that given, older, age.

The light green line, for example, represents the life expectancy for children who had reached age The most striking development we see is the dramatic increase in life expectancy since the midth century. Life expectancy at birth doubled from around 40 years to more than 81 years. While England and Wales are not the only region that achieved this improvement, the last years are the only time that humanity achieved anything like this. The evidence that we have for population health before modern times suggest that around a quarter of all infants died in the first year of life and almost half died before they reached the end of puberty see here and there was no trend for life expectancy before the modern improvement in health: In the centuries preceding this chart, life expectancy fluctuated between 30 and 40 years with no marked increase ever.

Mortality rates declined, and consequently life expectancy increased, for all age groups. Child mortality is defined as the share of children who die before reaching their 5th birthday. We therefore have to look at the life expectancy of a five-year-old to see how mortality changed without taking child mortality into account. This is shown by the yellow line.

In a five-year-old could expect to live 55 years. Today a five-year-old can expect to live 82 years. An increase of 27 years. The same is true for any higher age cut-off. A year-old, for example, could once expect to live up to the age of Today, a year-old can expect to live to the age of A gain of 13 years. This is true for countries around the world. Here is the data for the life expectancy of year-olds around the world. A second striking feature of this visualization is the big decline of life expectancy in It was caused by a very large global influenza epidemic, the Spanish flu pandemic.

Yes, the decline of child mortality matters a lot for life expectancy. As we have seen here it was not only children that benefited from this progress, but people at all ages.

Life expectancy in Maryland has improved notably in recent decades. A typical Maryland newborn in was expected to live Nebraska's life expectancy at birth ranking over the last four decades has dropped significantly, from sixth highest in to 20th highest in Similarly, the state's adult obesity rate is higher than the national share. These factors might be contributing to the state's decline in ranking. Unlike most states with higher-than-average life expectancy at birth, the poverty rate and uninsured rate in Arizona are relatively high.

Nearly 15 percent of Arizonans live in poverty, and more than 10 percent do not have health insurance, each the 11th highest percentage of all states.

Just as lack of access to medical care can adversely affect life expectancy, a strong health system can help explain a relatively high life expectancy. For every , Oregon residents, there are 95 primary care physicians, 81 dentists, and mental health providers -- all in the top 10 compared to all states. Defined as having at least five drinks during one occasion for men and four for women, excessive drinking has been linked to higher risk of heart disease, cancer, and mental health problems, all of which can lead to premature death.

Iowa had one of the smallest life expectancies improvement between and , and as a result, its ranking dropped, from fifth highest in to 16th highest in The Hawkeye State would likely benefit from a lower adult obesity rate as well as having adults exercise more and drink less.

All three measures compare poorly relative to all states. A person born in Florida in is expected to live The state has also had one of the larger improvements in life expectancy, increasing by 5. While socioeconomic factors like health insurance coverage rates and median household income frequently help explain differences in life expectancy, this is not always the case.

In Florida, The state's low income is likely high due to the high share of retirees residing in the state. The smallest state by area has the fourth largest concentration of primary care doctors and the sixth largest concentration of mental health providers per , people. The state's adult smoking and obesity rates are slightly below the national rates of Despite declining in ranking for life expectancy of states since , Utah has remained among the states with a higher life expectancy.

Utah has a relatively low adult obesity and physical inactivity rates -- with a number of national parks and monuments in the state it is hard to stay inside. These factors may explain why Utah is still in the top What could be contributing to its decline in ranking however, is the state's fairly large share of uninsured people, which at 9. People with no health insurance coverage have worse access to health care due to high cost and are less likely to receive care.

Despite still ranking among the 15 states with the highest life expectancy, South Dakota used to rank even higher. Several factors might be contributing to the Peace Garden State's drop in ranking.

Further, Good access to health services across a population often translates to better health outcomes because of the better odds of treating chronic health issues and of catching serious health problems early. No state has more primary care physicians per capita than Vermont, where for every , people there are The concentration of mental health providers, at Vermont's life expectancy at birth in was higher than most other states. Since then it has improved faster than most states, rising by 5.

Life expectancy in New Hampshire has continued to be among the highest over the years. Two reasons may help explain the consistent relatively high expectancy: relatively high educational attainment and low poverty, both of which have been linked to better overall health and longer life expectancy.

The Granite State has the eighth highest share of adults with a bachelor's degree or higher. Washington state has had among the longer life expectancies of all states over the last four decades.

One possible reason may be the high share of the population who engage in physical activity. Only The Evergreen State is also among those with the highest concentration of primary care doctors, dentists, and health care providers per , residents.

Colorado's average life expectancy at birth has remained eighth highest since The Centennial State has the lowest adult obesity rate in the country. In terms of overall health measures, Colorado has among the lowest shares of obesity, cancer deaths, and children living in poverty. New Jersey's life expectancy at birth has significantly improved over the last four decades, more so than other states.

As a result, its ranking improved from having the 22nd lowest life expectancy in to seventh highest in The Garden States has among the highest education attainment rates and household incomes of all states, and among the lowest poverty rates. These factors may have contributed to the state's 6. Massachusetts has significantly improved its standing when it comes to life expectancy, jumping 10 spots since One factor that may help explain this jump is health insurance coverage.

No state has a lower share of uninsured residents. Other contributing factors may be the state's fourth lowest adult obesity rate.

In addition, the Bay State has the highest concentration of mental health providers and dentists per capita, and the third highest concentration of primary care physicians. As is often the case in states with high life expectancies, measures such as New York's relatively low obesity rate and high college attainment rate reflect healthy lifestyles and advantages that support longer lives. One in four state adults are obese, versus approximately one in three adults nationwide.

The percentage of adults with at least a bachelor's degree of 36 percent is 10th highest of all states. New York's life expectancy at birth rose by over seven years between and , the largest improvement in the nation. To the extent that economic status relates to life expectancy, however, the gains in life expectancy are not enjoyed equally across the state.

New York is the nation's most unequal state, with incomes at the 20th percentile nearly six times greater than the incomes at the 80th. Connecticut has the highest concentration of primary doctors, dentists, and mental health providers per , people. The state has fourth lowest adult smoking rate as well as among the lowest shares of adults who report being in poor health. Minnesota has been in the top three states for life expectancy since at least the s.

The state also has the third lowest share of uninsured people, at only 4. Residents of California have significantly improved their lifestyle, improving average life expectancy in the state significantly, and jumping from the 20th position in to second in The Golden State has the third lowest share of obese adults, the fifth lowest share of adults who do not exercise, and the second lowest share of adults who smoke.

Also, Hawaii continues to be the state with the longest life expectancy year after year. The Aloha State has the second lowest obesity rate in the country, the third lowest smoking rate, and the among the primary care doctors and dentists per capita.

The state has the second lowest share of residents with no health insurance, which may explain why are only Higher incomes are closely associated with longer life expectancy.