The Best and Worst Countries in Terms of Life Expectancy

Updated on April 26, 2020

Simply put, life expectancy is the average period of time that a person may expect to live.

While the concept may be familiar and seemingly simple, the nuances of its calculation are far from it. Life expectancy is actually a statistical measure of how long a person may live based on a multitude of demographic factors like the year they were born, their current age, and even their sex. While in mathematical terms life expectancy refers to the expected number of years of life remaining for an individual at any given age, expectancy estimates are often given as life expectancy at birth.

Boy looking at a world map poster — Annette Bunch / Moment / Getty Images

Life Expectancy Comparisons

Life expectancy figures are perhaps most interesting in relative terms. We might consider how life expectancy has changed over the years or how life expectancies differ between the sexes. Perhaps we are more interested in the differences in life expectancy estimates in different regions or countries, which is where global life expectancies come in.

Here we will look at the trends in life expectancy in countries with the best (highest) and worst (lowest) life expectancies over the last ten years.

Top 10 Countries With Best Life Expectancy: Then and Now

Let's see how global life expectancy figures by country have changed in the years since 2006.

2006 Top Ten
Rank	Country	Overall Life Expectancy (in years)
1	Andorra	83.51
2	Macau	82.19
3	San Marino	81.71
4	Singapore	81.81
5	Hong Kong	81.59
6	Japan	81.25
7	Sweden	80.51
8	Switzerland	80.51
9	Australia	80.50
10	Guernsey	80.42

2017 showed an overall increase in life expectancy and some new countries making the list.

2015 Top Ten
Rank	Country	Overall Life Expectancy (in years)
1	Monaco	89.40
2	Japan	85.30
3	Singapore	85.20
4	Macau	84.60
5	San Marino	83.30
6	Iceland	83.10
7	Hong Kong	83.00
8	Andorra	82.90
9	Switzerland	82.60
10	Guernsey	82.60

Bottom 10 Countries With Worst Life Expectancy: Then and Now

While the countries with the best life expectancies have seen an overall increase in their numbers, so too have the countries with the worst life expectancies.

Here are the bottom ten countries with the shortest life expectancies in 2006 and as of 2017.

2006 Bottom Ten
Rank	Country	Overall Life Expectancy (in years)
1	Swaziland	32.63
2	Botswana	33.74
3	Lesotho	34.40
4	Zimbabwe	39.29
5	Liberia	39.65
6	Mozambique	39.82
7	Zambia	40.03
8	Sierra Leone	40.22
9	Malawi	41.70
10	South Africa	42.73

Again, 2017 saw new countries make the list.

2015 Bottom Ten
Rank	Country	Overall Life Expectancy (in Years)
1	Chad	50.60
2	Guinea-Bissau	51.00
3	Gabon	52.10
4	Swaziland	52.10
5	Zambia	52.70
6	Somalia	52.80
7	Central African Republic	52.80
8	Lesotho	53.00
9	Mozambique	53.70
10	Nigeria	53.80

Life Expectancies of Other Countries of Interest

Many are surprised by the major countries that don't make the top ten list in terms of highest life expectancies.

Here are the life expectancy numbers for some of those notable countries that didn't make the top ten.

Other Major Countries
Country	Overall Life Expectancy (2006)	Overall Life Expectancy (2017)
Canada	80.22	81.90
Italy	79.81	82.30
France	79.73	81.90
Germany	78.80	80.80
United Kingdom	78.54	80.80
United States	77.85	80.00
Mexico	75.41	76.10
China	72.58	75.70
Iraq	69.08	74.90
Russia	67.08	71.00

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