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Life expectancy at birth

period tables – OECD
See all data and research on:
Life ExpectancyChild & Infant Mortality

What you should know about this indicator

  • Period life expectancy is a metric that summarizes death rates across all age groups in one particular year.
  • For a given year, it represents the average lifespan for a hypothetical group of people, if they experienced the same age-specific death rates throughout their lives as the age-specific death rates seen in that particular year.

How is this data described by its producer - OECD?

Life expectancy at birth is defined as how long, on average, a newborn can expect to live, if current death rates do not change. However, the actual age-specific death rate of any particular birth cohort cannot be known in advance. If rates are falling, actual life spans will be higher than life expectancy calculated using current death rates. Life expectancy at birth is one of the most frequently used health status indicators. Gains in life expectancy at birth can be attributed to a number of factors, including rising living standards, improved lifestyle and better education, as well as greater access to quality health services. This indicator is presented as a total and per gender and is measured in years.

Life expectancy at birth
period tables – OECD
The period life expectancy at birth, in a given year.
Source
OECD (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data
Last updated
October 11, 2023
Next expected update
May 2026
Date range
1960–2022
Unit
years

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Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

OECD – Life expectancy at birth

Life expectancy at birth is defined as how long, on average, a newborn can expect to live, if current death rates do not change. However, the actual age-specific death rate of any particular birth cohort cannot be known in advance. If rates are falling, actual life spans will be higher than life expectancy calculated using current death rates. Life expectancy at birth is one of the most frequently used health status indicators. Gains in life expectancy at birth can be attributed to a number of factors, including rising living standards, improved lifestyle and better education, as well as greater access to quality health services. This indicator is presented as a total and per gender and is measured in years.

Retrieved on
October 11, 2023
Retrieved from
https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2023), Life expectancy at birth (indicator). doi: 10.1787/27e0fc9d-en (Accessed on 12 October 2023)

Life expectancy at birth is defined as how long, on average, a newborn can expect to live, if current death rates do not change. However, the actual age-specific death rate of any particular birth cohort cannot be known in advance. If rates are falling, actual life spans will be higher than life expectancy calculated using current death rates. Life expectancy at birth is one of the most frequently used health status indicators. Gains in life expectancy at birth can be attributed to a number of factors, including rising living standards, improved lifestyle and better education, as well as greater access to quality health services. This indicator is presented as a total and per gender and is measured in years.

Retrieved on
October 11, 2023
Retrieved from
https://data.oecd.org/healthstat/life-expectancy-at-birth.htm
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
OECD (2023), Life expectancy at birth (indicator). doi: 10.1787/27e0fc9d-en (Accessed on 12 October 2023)

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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Life expectancy at birth”, part of the following publication: Saloni Dattani, Lucas Rodés-Guirao, Hannah Ritchie, Esteban Ortiz-Ospina, and Max Roser (2023) - “Life Expectancy”. Data adapted from OECD. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.html [online resource] (archived on March 4, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

OECD (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data

Full citation

OECD (2023) – with minor processing by Our World in Data. “Life expectancy at birth – OECD – period tables” [dataset]. OECD, “Life expectancy at birth” [original data]. Retrieved April 1, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260304-094028/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.html (archived on March 4, 2026).

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Data URL (CSV format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false
Metadata URL (JSON format)
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false

Code examples

Examples of how to load this data into different data analysis tools.

Excel / Google Sheets
=IMPORTDATA("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Python with Pandas
import pandas as pd
import requests

# Fetch the data.
df = pd.read_csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", storage_options = {'User-Agent': 'Our World In Data data fetch/1.0'})

# Fetch the metadata
metadata = requests.get("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false").json()
R
library(jsonlite)

# Fetch the data
df <- read.csv("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")

# Fetch the metadata
metadata <- fromJSON("https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.metadata.json?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false")
Stata
import delimited "https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/life-expectancy-at-birth-oecd.csv?v=1&csvType=full&useColumnShortNames=false", encoding("utf-8") clear