Mortality

Life Expectancy at Birthyears

Number of years a newborn would live if mortality patterns at birth stayed constant. Pre-1960 values from Our World in Data long-run reconstructions (Riley, Zijdeman, HMD, UN); from 1960 World Bank WDI. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Life Expectancy at Birth, Femaleyears

Years a newborn girl would live under current mortality patterns. Women outlive men almost everywhere; the size of the gap, not its direction, is what varies. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Life Expectancy at Birth, Maleyears

Years a newborn boy would live under current mortality patterns. Read against the female series: the gap runs from about two years to over ten, widening where male deaths from injury, alcohol and smoking are common. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Crude Death Rateper 1,000 people

Deaths per 1,000 people per year. Not adjusted for age structure, so an ageing country can show a rising rate while mortality risk at every age is still falling. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Under-five Mortality Rateper 1,000 live births

Deaths of children under age 5 per 1,000 live births. Long-run series from Our World in Data (Gapminder historical estimates and UN IGME). Source: Our World in Data.

Infant Mortality Rateper 1,000 live births

Deaths before the first birthday per 1,000 live births. Sensitive to registration practice at the edge of viability: countries that record extremely premature births as live births rather than stillbirths report higher rates for the same underlying medical outcomes. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Maternal Mortality Ratioper 100,000 live births

Deaths from causes related to pregnancy or childbirth per 100,000 live births, within 42 days of the end of pregnancy. A modelled estimate — few countries measure this directly with complete civil registration. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Suicide Mortality Rateper 100,000

Suicide deaths per 100,000 people, age-standardised WHO estimate. Classification depends on legal and religious context as well as medicine, and undercounting is thought to be substantial in some countries. Source: World Bank Open Data.

Historic Crude Death Rateper 1,000 people

Deaths per 1,000 people per year from the Human Mortality Database (via Our World in Data). Covers countries with long vital-registration series, in some cases back to the mid-18th century. Not age-standardized. Source: Human Mortality Database.

• —Life expectancy at birth is a period measure and does not predict how long people born today will actually live.
• —Crude death rates are not age-standardised, so older populations look worse at identical mortality risk.

Definitions for every indicator are listed in the glossary, and collection methods in the methodology.