{"chart":{"title":"Life expectancy at birth, projections","subtitle":"The period life expectancy is the age to which a newborn can expect to live, if age-specific mortality rates in the current year were to stay the same throughout their life. Future projections are based on the UN's medium scenario.","citation":"UN, World Population Prospects (2024)","originalChartUrl":"https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/future-life-expectancy-projections","selection":["World","Asia (UN)","Africa (UN)","Europe (UN)","Oceania (UN)","Northern America (UN)","Latin America and the Caribbean (UN)"]},"columns":{"Life expectancy - Sex: all - Age: 0 - Variant: medium":{"titleShort":"Life expectancy at birth","titleLong":"Life expectancy at birth - UN WPP – with medium scenario projections","descriptionShort":"Period life expectancy at birth. Future projections are based on the UN's medium scenario.","descriptionKey":"- This is period life expectancy — a snapshot of mortality rates in a single year. It does *not* follow a real generation of people; it tells you how long someone would live if the year's age-specific death rates stayed the same for the rest of their life.\n- Future values are the mean of thousands of trajectories simulated by the UN. When fitting its projection model, the UN excluded observed life expectancies for 2020 to 2023 so COVID-19's temporary impact wouldn't distort the long-run trend.","descriptionProcessing":"For ages above 0, the UN reports life expectancy as the years a person at that age has left to live. We add the starting age back so the chart shows the *expected age at death* — for example, a 65-year-old with 17 years remaining is shown as 82.","shortUnit":"years","unit":"years","timespan":"2024-2100","type":"Numeric","owidVariableId":950931,"shortName":"life_expectancy__sex_all__age_0__variant_medium","lastUpdated":"2024-07-12","citationShort":"UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data","citationLong":"UN, World Population Prospects (2024) – processed by Our World in Data. “Life expectancy at birth – UN WPP – with medium scenario projections” [dataset]. United Nations, “World Population Prospects”; United Nations, “World Population Prospects - Interim Update” [original data].","fullMetadata":"https://api.ourworldindata.org/v1/indicators/950931.metadata.json"}},"dateDownloaded":"2026-07-30"}