In 2015, life expectancy at birth, in Brazil, was 75.5 years (75 years, 5 months and 26 days), an increase of 3 months and 14 days in relation to 2014 (75.2 years). For the male population, the increase was of 3 months and 22 days, rising from 71.6 years to 71.9 years. For the female population, the increase was a little lower (3 months and 4 days), increasing from 78.8 years to 79.1 years. The infant mortality rate (under 1 year old) stood at 13.8 per thousand live births and the child mortality rate (under 5 years old), at 16.1 per thousand.

These and other pieces of information are found in the Complete Life Tables of Brazil - 2015, which presents life expectancy of all exact ages up to 80 years old and are used as one of the parameters for determining the social security factor, in the calculation of the retirement pensions of the General Social Security System. All the results of Life Tables can be accessed here.

Table 2
Life expectancy at birth - Brazil
1940/2015

In 2015, the Federation Unit with the highest life expectancy at birth was Santa Catariana (78.7 years), which also had the highest life expectancy for men (75.4) and for women (82.1). On the other hand, Maranhão had the lowest life expectancy at birth for both sexes (70.3 years), whereas Alagoas had the lowest life expectancy for men (66.5 years), and Roraima, for women (74.0 years). The greatest difference between the life expectancies between men and women were seen in Alagoas, 9.5 years more for women, followed by Bahia (9.1 years) and Sergipe (8.4 years).

Life expectancy at birth up 30 years from 1940 to 2015

From 1940 to 2015, life expectancy at birth for both sexes went from 45.5 years to 75.5 years, a 30-year rise. In that same period, the infant mortality rate fell from 146.6 deaths per thousand live births to 13.8 deaths per thousand, a reduction of 90.6%.

All ages benefited from the decrease of the mortality levels, mainly the youngest groups, in which are the highest increases in life expectancy, especially in the female population. In 1940, a person who was 50 year years old had a life expectancy of 19.1 years, living on average 69.1 years. With the decline of mortality in this period, that same person aged 50, in 2015, had a life expectancy of 30.2 years and consequently an average life of 80.2 years, living on average 11 more years than a person as old as him/her in 1940.

Table 3
Life expectancy by exact ages, change in years of the period and average life time - Brazil -
1940/2015

Male overmortality is higher among young persons aged 20 to 24

In 2015, a 20-year-old men was 4.5 times more likely not to be 25 years old than a women in the same age group (20-24 years of age). Male overmortality (higher mortality among the male population in relation to the female one) used to concentrate on the groups of young dukts, of 15 to 19 years of age (3.6), 20 to 24 years f age (4.5) and 25 to 29 years of age (3.6). Such phenomenon can be explained by the higher incidence of violent cause deaths or non-natural ones, which strike more the male population.

The non-existence of male overmortality at higher levels in the young adult groups in 1940 confirms that this process is typical of regions that underwent a rapid urbanization and metropolization process, as in the case of Brazil.

Life expectancy at 65 years of age above 18.4 years

In 1940, a 65-year-old would expect to live on average 10.6 more years, but in case of men, it would be 9.3 years and, of women, 11.5 years. In 2015, these figures reached 18.4 for both sexes, 16.7 years for men and 19.8 for women. In 1940, the population aged 65 and over represented 2.4% of the total. In 2015, 7.9%.

Life expectancy at 80 years old was 9.4 (total), 10.1(women) and 8.4 (men). In 1940, these figures were 4.3 for both sexes, 4.5 for women and 4.0 for men.

Between 1940 and 2015, the mortality rate of women in the fertile period (15 to 49) also decreased. In 1940, of each a hundred thousand female live births, 77.777 entered the reproductive period and of them, 57,336 reached the end of it. In 2015, of each a hundred thousand female live births, 98,302 entered the reproductive period and 94,052 reached the end of it. The probability of a female newborn complete the fertile period went from 573‰ (per thousand) in 1940 to 941‰ in 2015.

The adult phase (15 to 59 years of age) also benefited from the decline of the mortality levels. In 1940, of 1,000 persons who were 15 years old, nearly 535 got to be 60 years old. Conversely, in 2015, 858 got to be this age.