In 2009, life expectancy at birth in Brazil reached 73.17 years.

Compared with 2008 there was an increase of 0.31 years (3 months and 22 days) and, between 1980 and 2009, a rise of 10.60 years (10 years, 7 months and six days). Thus, in the last 29 years, that indicator has registered an annual average growth of 4 months and 12 days. According to the Projection of Brazilian Population – 2008 Revision, it can reach 81.29 years in 2050. Conversely, infant mortality has dropped from 69.12 to 22.47 deaths per one thousand live births since 1980. 

Infant mortality rate in Brazil is only inferior to the rates of Paraguai, Bolívia and Haiti, but it is still behind Chile, Cuba, Uruguai, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and El Salvador.

Brazilian infant mortality rate has reached a level unquestionably inferior to that of countries such as Cote d’Ivoire and Sierra Leone. However, it still needs to go a long way until it reaches, in middle turn, infant mortality levels such as those observed in Portugal, France, Norway, Finland, Japan, Singapore and Iceland.

By comparing life expectancy at birth of Brazil, projected for 2009 by IBGE, with that of some countries selected by the United Nations Population Division, female life expectancy of Brazil (77.0 years) is distant from the same population indicator of Japan (82.7 years) in 7.70 years. For males (69.4 years), the difference is almost the double: 13.30 years.

Information on mortality in the country needs to improve

Although information from the System of Information on Mortality of the Ministry of Health and death statistics from Civil Registry have improved in the last years, there is still a difficulty in directly measuring mortality rates (particularly in the first years of life). A challenge that needs to be overcome urgently so that the country presents internationally comparable indicators. There are still in the country the so-called clandestine or non-official cemeteries, which put obstacles to the knowledge of the real number of deaths and their causes. Many of those cemeteries are established in inappropriate locations, next to weirs, rivers and lakes, eventually leading to water contamination.

That scenario is next to what happens in countries where infant mortality is significantly low, especially considering perinatal deaths (deaths that occur during the first week of life) in comparison with neonatal deaths (occurring during the first month of life).

Mortality difference between young men and women more than doubled between 1980 and 2009

In 1980, men had twice as many chances as women to die at 22 years of age.

Twenty nine years later, male over-mortality more than doubled: the ratio of the chances of death under 23 years of age was estimated in 1 female death to 4.5 male deaths.

As deaths from violent causes reach male population more often, the difference of life expectancies between men and women increases.

In 2009, male life expectancy reached 69.42 years, 9.76 years (9 years, 9 months and 4 days) more than in 1980. Conversely, female life expectancy at birth reached 77.01 years, or 11.26 years (11 years, 3 months and 4 days) more than in 1980. 

Between 1980 and 2009, life expectancy among elderly also rose

Between 1980 and 2009, life expectancy at 60, for both sexes, rose from 16.39 to 21.27 years, indicating that in 2009 a person at 60 could expect to live, on average, up to 81.27 years, against 76.39 years of average life in 1980. For men, that value changed from 15.17 to 19.55 years and for women from 17.63 to 22.83 years. In this case, in 1980-2009, male average life would virtually change from 75.17 to 79.55 years and female average life, from 77.63 to 82.83 years.

In 2009, the respective years of average life for both sexes, men and women at 70 years of age were 84.58; 83.37 and 85.61.

The gains in life expectancies at 60 and 70 years of age in relation to the estimated expectancy at the moment of birth, in 2009, were, respectively, 8.10 and 11.41 years, for both sexes; 10.13 and 13.95 years for men and 5.82 and 8.60 years for women.

The millenium goal for infant mortality will probably be achieved in 2015

By 2015, Brazil will probably have accomplished the fourth Millenium Development Goal, as defined by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP): the reduction by two thirds of prevailing infant mortality around 1990. If the decline pace in infant mortality rate is not interrupted, a rate of 15 under-1 deaths per a thousand live births is expected within five years.

In compliance with the 2^nd Article of the Presidential Decree no. 3,266 of 29/11/99, IBGE annually publishes the complete table of mortality in Brazil. It is used by the Ministry of Social Security as one of the parameters to determine the social security factor in the estimation of retirement pensions under the General Regime of Social Security.

Between 1980 and 2009, infant mortality dropped from 69.12 to 22.47 deaths per one thousand live births.

Infant mortality rate recorded important reductions in the period: in 1980, 69.12 infant deaths under one year of age per one thousand live births and, in 2009, a rate of 22.47%.

Infant mortality changed profile in 28 years

In 1980, the proportion of deaths in neonatal period was 40.70%, widening to 67.30% in 2008.

That was an increase of 26.60 percentage points in 28 years. Conversely, the proportion of deaths between the first month and the first year of life declined from 59.30% to 32.70%, in the period.

In 28 years, mass immunization programs, incentive to breastfeeding, monitoring of pregnant women and newly-born, basic sanitation expansion, among other factors, contributed, altogether, to the sharp decline in postneonatal deaths, and to the increase in neonatal deaths.