Subscribe to our newsletter. It represents the average life span of a newborn and is an indicator of the overall health of a country.
Life expectancy can fall due to problems like famine, war, disease and poor health.
Improvements in health and welfare increase life expectancy. The higher the life expectancy, the better shape a country is in. As you can see from the map below, more developed regions of the world generally have higher life expectancies than less developed regions. The regional variation is quite dramatic. However, some countries like Saudi Arabia have very high GNP per capita but don't have high life expectancies.