How long can a newborn in India expect to live?
ORGI · released 20 May 2026 · next due by 19 Jul 2027
| Period | Value (years) |
|---|---|
| 2020-24 | 70.6 |
| 2019-23 | 70.3 |
| 2018-22 | 69.9 |
| 2017-21 | 69.8 |
| 2016-20 | 70.0 |
| 2015-19 | 69.7 |
| 2014-18 | 69.4 |
| 2013-17 | 69.0 |
| 2012-16 | 68.7 |
| 2011-15 | 68.3 |
| 2010-14 | 67.9 |
Use in your answer
Life expectancy at birth in India was 70.6 years in 2020-24, compared with 70.3 years in 2019-23 (SRS abridged life tables). Source: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, SRS-based Abridged Life Tables 2020-24.
Cite as: SRS-based Abridged Life Tables 2020-24 (Registrar General of India)
What this shows
- Life expectancy at birth in India was 70.6 years in 2020-24, up 0.3 years from 2019-23 and from 49.7 years in 1970-75.
- Women live longer: 72.8 years against 68.7 for men in 2020-24. It was 69.4 years in rural areas and 73.2 in urban areas.
- Among bigger states, Kerala had the highest life expectancy (75.6 years) and Chhattisgarh the lowest (64.7) in 2020-24. Life expectancy dipped from 70.0 in 2016-20 to 69.8 in 2017-21 before rising again.
Cite this
Cite a fixed version from every published version below.
Source and method
What exactly is measured
Life expectancy at birth: the average number of years a newborn would live at the death rates of the period, from the Sample Registration System's abridged life tables, published by the Registrar General of India. Each estimate covers a five-year period, so successive periods overlap by four years and change slowly.
Life expectancy by state
Expectation of life at birth in years, both sexes, 2020-24, bigger states and UTs, SRS abridged life tables. Source: Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, India, SRS-based Abridged Life Tables 2020-24, 2020-24.
Where
Ranked
How are the states spread?
8 of 22 states fall between 70 years and 72 years. Each column counts the states in one band of life expectancy; the dashed line is the all-India figure.
Hover a column for the states in it. Bands are equal widths of the state figures, 2020-24.
History: every published version
Each time the source changes this series we archive the full series as it stood, with an archived copy of the source, and never delete an old version. Each version has a permanent page you can cite. Recorded since 20 Oct 2026: 1 version.
No figure in this series has been revised since we began recording on 20 Oct 2026.
- 11 periods, latest 2020-24: 70.6 years · first snapshotArchived source
04d19945e8d2
Release notes (1)
- 70.6 years2020-24, SRS Abridged Life Tables 2020-24
Get the data
Use it in Excel, Python or R
Excel (Data → From Web): https://india.tf/c/hea-lifeexp-087/data.csv
Python: pandas.read_csv("https://india.tf/c/hea-lifeexp-087/data.csv")
R: read.csv("https://india.tf/c/hea-lifeexp-087/data.csv")
All statistics: /api/index.json. Free to reuse with attribution (GODL-India).
