Learning To Live Life: Global 1988

Learning To Live Life To The Full

A baby boy born in Bethlehem this Christmas can expect to live to the ripe old age of 75. In Britain life expectancy for a boy is 72. Yet in parts of the Third World life is still nasty, brutish and very short.

The enormous discrepancy between life expectancies across the world is mostly explained by high death rates in very young babies. A new-born in Britain, with its perinatal mortality rate of around ten per thousand, may expect to live to the age of 75. In Western Sahara, 176 out of every thousand babies die before their first birthday and life expectancy is a mere 40 years.

Once childhood is passed, however, this gap narrows - the life expectancy of a 30-year-old in the UK is 77 and Western Sahara 65.

Countries well down the league table therefore have primarily to tackle the problem of high infant mortality if they are to improve their position.

Another determinant of life expectancy is gender, where women have some natural advantage, though this is much less marked in poorer countries where many more women die in childbirth.

Not apparent in the figures (from US News & World Report based on data from the US Census Bureau) presented here is the considerable influence of social class, so that life expectancy among the elite in the Third World can be similar to that generally found in the West.

As these figures reveal, most people in advanced societies now live out their natural life span. There is reason to hope that the same will become true for the rest of the world in the next 50 years.

Country	Male	Female		Country	Male	Female
Andorra Japan Israel Switzerland Iceland Spain Greece Jamaica Canada Italy France W. Germany Great Britain United States New Zealand Austria	75 75 75 74 74 74 74 74 73 73 72 72 72 72 72 71	81 80 78 82 80 80 79 78 81 80 80 79 78 78 78 79		Gambia Western Sahara Guinea Angola Afghanistan Mozambique Nigeria Malawi Laos Uganda Nepal Ethiopia Rwanda	38 39 39 41 43 44 46 46 47 48 49 49 49	43 41 43 44 41 47 48 49 50 50 48 52 52

Later figures are available from UN publication The World At Six Billion Table 27 Life Expectancy

Perinatal mortality is defined as early neonatal mortality (babies dying within one week of birth) and still births (babies born dead after 28 weeks’ gestation). This definition is subject to change.

The above figures are based on data available sometime in the late 1980s.

It has been estimated that half of the people who ever lived died from malaria.

Extract from the Sunday Telegraph colour supplement, December 1988

**Extract from the Sunday Telegraph colour supplement, December 1988**