Life expectancy at birth
Situation
Life expectancy at birth reflects the overall mortality level of a population. It summarizes the mortality pattern that prevails across all age groups in a given year – children and adolescents, adults and the elderly. In 2009, life expectancy at birth globally was 68 years, ranging from 57 years in low-income countries to 80 years in high-income countries, giving a ratio of 1.4 between the two income groups.
Since 1990, life expectancy has increased globally by 4 years, but during the 1990s the value in Europe has showed a stagnation, and in Africa it has even decreased. For Europe, the phenomenon was due mainly to adverse mortality trends in the former Soviet Union countries. The decrease in Africa has been caused by HIV/AIDS, but the increasing availability of antiretroviral therapy has reduced the spread of the epidemic, and the mortality due to HIV/AIDS has been decreasing since about 2005, allowing life expectancy at birth to increase again: average life expectancy at birth, in Africa, was 51 years in 2000, whereas it was almost 54 years in 2009.