In 2015-19 period, Indian life expectancy was inched up to 69.7 at birth well below the approximated global life expectancy of 72.6. It took us almost ten years to add up the two years. The reason for the difficulty to increase life expectancy can be because of high infant and under five mortality of this period.
HIGHLIGHTS
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There has been a slight spike in life expectancy rate in India.
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There has been a raise of 2 years.
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This raise took almost 10 years.
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The last recorded expectancy rate is 69.7 in 2015-2019.
In the recently released ‘abridged life tables’ 2015-19 of Sample Registration System(SRS) shows that the gap between life expectancy at birth and at the age one or five is biggest in states like Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It is because of their highest infant mortality(IMR). Madhya Pradesh has the highest IMR of 43. Uttar Pradesh has IMR of 38. It jumps by 3.4 years at first year in Uttar Pradesh and 2.7 years in Madhya Pradesh.
These huge gaps in how long a person gets to live at birth and after 1 year is evident in other states like Gujarat, Assam, Rajasthan, Odisha and Chattisgarh. In 1970-75 the life expectancy was 49.7 and in 2015-2019 it was 69.7. this 45 year period added 20 years to India’s expectancy rate.
Odisha has the biggest raise in this 24 years of 45.7 to 69.8. Tamil Nadu follows Odisha with increased rate from 49.6 to 72.6. Chattisgarh has the lowest rate of just 65.3. Uttar Pradesh in second in line with the low rate of 65.6. but if you compare now to 1970-75, Uttar Pradesh increased by 22.6 years.
The different life expectancy across India
Across India there is a variation in different states and also between rural and urban areas. The women in Himachal Pradesh have the highest expectancy rate at birth of 82.3. The men in rural Chattisgarh have the lowest rate of just 62.8 years which is a gap of 15.8 years. Assam has the highest rural and urban gap of almost 8 years. Himachal Pradesh follows Assam with a gap of 5 years.
Kerala is the only state in which the rural life expectancy is higher than urban expectancy rate for both men and women, while in Uttarakhand that was the case among women. In the recent past, the expectancy rate at birth in Uttarakhand has been reduced. In 2010-14 it was 71.7 and then it dropped to 70.6 by 2015-2019 showing a steady down trend in the mid period.
Bihar and Jharkhand remained the only states in which male life expectancy was higher than women in both rural and urban areas.
To conclude, the spike in India’s life expectancy is surprising and upsetting at the same time because it took more than a decade for us to reach this number and this is still the average rate and we still have a long way to go.
