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How long will a baby born today live?
Life expectancy in the world is 73.5 years. That is an average over all the world’s people, and babies are born more often where lives are shorter. Weighted by where babies are actually born, the figure for a baby born today is 70.4 years. Below is what stands behind these numbers, what they do not say, and what the odds look like at different ages.
What life expectancy measures
Life expectancy at birth answers a narrow question. Take the death rates at every age as they are in a country now. If a baby lived its whole life with exactly these rates, how many years would it live on average?
So it is not a forecast. A baby born today will turn 60 around 2086, and nobody knows the death rates of that time. If they fall, real lives will be longer than the figure at birth. If they rise, as they do in wars, epidemics and deep crises, lives will be shorter.
It is also an average, and an average hides the shape of a life. Where many children die in the first years, life expectancy is low even if most adults live to old age. In low-income countries it is 65.2 years, yet by today’s life tables 63 of 100 babies born there will live to 65.
Out of 100 babies born today
The game keeps a life table for every country and both sexes: the chance of dying at each age. The tables are fitted to UN figures for infant and child deaths, for deaths between 15 and 60 and for life expectancy. With them we can follow 100 babies born today, assuming that death rates in every country stay as they are now.
| Out of 100 newborns | World | Low income | Lower-middle | Upper-middle | High income |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will die before age 1 | 2.8 | 4.5 | 3.4 | 1.1 | 0.4 |
| Will die before age 5 | 3.7 | 6.5 | 4.5 | 1.4 | 0.5 |
| Will live to 65 | 72 | 63 | 68 | 80 | 86 |
| Will live to 80 | 35 | 23 | 30 | 45 | 60 |
Groups follow the World Bank classification; babies are weighted by the number of births in each country.
- Will live to 65
- Will live to 80
In high-income countries 60 of 100 babies will live to 80; in low-income countries, 23. The gap opens at the very start: of the 6.5 children in 100 who die before age five in low-income countries, 4.5 die before their first birthday.
Worldwide, 72 of 100 babies born today will live to 65 and 35 to 80, if nothing changes. These are the same tables the game uses when it plays a life.
Boys and girls
Women live longer than men in every one of the 186 countries in our data. Worldwide life expectancy is 75.9 years for women and 71 years for men.
By the life tables, 76 of 100 girls born today will live to 65, and 68 of 100 boys. To 80: 41 girls and 30 boys.
Most of the gap is made in adult life. Worldwide, 17 of 100 men who reach 15 die before 60, against 11 of 100 women. The figures on deaths in childhood are for boys and girls together, and the life tables split them in a fixed ratio, so the difference between the sexes in this article comes mainly from adult ages.
How large the gap is depends on the country. It is largest in Russia: 10.6 years. It is smallest in Togo: 0.5 years.
In the countries with the most births
Here are the ten countries where the most babies are born. Together they account for 53% of the world’s births. The figures in this table are published statistics, not the game’s model.
| Country | Share of world births | Die before age 1, per 100 children | Die before age 5, per 100 children | Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 men | Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 women | Life expectancy, men | Life expectancy, women |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| India | 18% | 2.3 | 2.7 | 18 | 12 | 70.7 years | 73.9 years |
| China | 7.2% | 0.4 | 0.6 | 11 | 5.6 | 75.2 years | 81 years |
| Nigeria | 5.7% | 7 | 12 | 35 | 34 | 54.3 years | 54.9 years |
| Pakistan | 5.2% | 4.8 | 5.6 | 20 | 13 | 65.5 years | 70.3 years |
| Indonesia | 3.4% | 1.5 | 1.8 | 19 | 14 | 69.2 years | 73.4 years |
| DR Congo | 3.4% | 5.6 | 9 | 29 | 22 | 60 years | 64.2 years |
| Ethiopia | 3.1% | 3.5 | 4.5 | 24 | 15 | 64.4 years | 71 years |
| USA | 2.7% | 0.6 | 0.7 | 15 | 8.2 | 76.5 years | 81.4 years |
| Bangladesh | 2.6% | 2.4 | 3.1 | 14 | 10 | 73.3 years | 76.7 years |
| Brazil | 1.9% | 1.2 | 1.4 | 17 | 8.3 | 73 years | 79.1 years |
Among these ten, the chance of dying before five ranges from 0.6 in 100 in China to 12 in 100 in Nigeria. Life expectancy ranges from 54.6 years in Nigeria to 79 years in the United States.
India alone accounts for 18% of the world’s births. There, 2.7 in 100 children die before five, and life expectancy is 70.7 years for men and 73.9 years for women. In China, the second country by births, the figures are 0.6 in 100, 75.2 years and 81 years.
What these numbers cannot tell
They cannot tell how long one particular child will live. A life table describes a large number of people, not a person.
They describe today. The children in this article will grow up with medicine, incomes and risks that do not exist yet.
And the game’s life tables are a model. They match the UN figures for the first five years, for ages 15 to 60 and for life expectancy as a whole, but the shape of the curve after 60 is our approximation, and for a few countries with very high adult mortality it is a rough one.
Sources
All figures are calculated from the data the game uses: the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (release of October 8, 2026) and the sources below. Values that are estimates rather than published statistics are left out of every “highest” and “lowest”.
- Life expectancy at birth, men and women: UN World Population Prospects 2024, via the World Bank’s World Development Indicators (SP.DYN.LE00.MA.IN, SP.DYN.LE00.FE.IN), 2024.
- Infant mortality, deaths before age 1: UN Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME), via WDI (SP.DYN.IMRT.IN), 2024.
- Under-five mortality: UN IGME, via WDI (SH.DYN.MORT), 2024.
- Probability of dying between ages 15 and 60, men and women: UN World Population Prospects 2024, via WDI (SP.DYN.AMRT.MA, SP.DYN.AMRT.FE).
- Survival to 1, 5, 65 and 80: the game’s life tables for each country and sex, fitted to the UN figures above (infant and child mortality, mortality between 15 and 60, life expectancy).
- Income groups: World Bank country classification for fiscal year 2027.
- Births a year: population times the crude birth rate, WDI (SP.DYN.CBRT.IN), 2024.
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