Trends in Life Expectancy in India: Progress and Challenges

Life expectancy at birth is one of the most telling indicators of a nation’s overall health, development, and social progress. India’s story on this front is remarkable: from an average of less than 50 years in the early 1970s, life expectancy has climbed to around 70 years today. Yet beneath this national average lies a complex picture of gender gaps, sharp state-wise differences, and stubborn inequalities that continue to shape who lives longer and why.

What life expectancy really measures 🔗

Life expectancy at birth represents the average number of years a newborn would live if current age-specific mortality rates remained constant throughout their lifetime. It is derived from the life table, a statistical model that summarises mortality patterns across age groups. Because deaths in infancy and early childhood pull this average down sharply, improvements in child survival have an outsized impact on life expectancy figures. This is why the indicator is so sensitive to public health investments, even if those investments are concentrated in the earliest years of life.

The Office of the Registrar General of India publishes life tables based on the Sample Registration System (SRS), which has tracked births and deaths in a nationally representative sample since 1970. These tables remain the most reliable source for understanding mortality trends in the country.

A historical overview: from under 50 to around 70 years 🔗

At independence in 1947, average life expectancy was around 32 years. The next few decades brought enormous gains, largely because epidemic diseases like smallpox, cholera, and malaria were brought under control. By the early 1970s, life expectancy had risen to roughly 49.7 years, and over the following five decades it climbed steadily to about 70 years by the 2016-20 period. This represents nearly five decades of uninterrupted improvement, an achievement few countries of comparable size and diversity have matched.

The decade-by-decade trajectory 🔗

The 1970s marked a turning point. The launch of the Expanded Programme on Immunization in 1978, expanded maternal care, and the global eradication of smallpox (declared in 1980) lifted life expectancy to around 54 years by 1980. The 1980s and 1990s continued this momentum, pushing the figure past 60 years by the turn of the millennium. By 2011, the SRS recorded a national average of around 67 years, and by 2023, World Bank data placed it at approximately 72 years.

The COVID-19 reversal 🔗

This long stretch of progress was interrupted by the pandemic. According to the SRS, life expectancy at birth dipped from 70 years in 2016-20 to 69.8 years in 2017-21, the first decline recorded in five decades. The death rate jumped from 6.0 per thousand in 2020 to 7.9 in 2021, with rural areas seeing a sharper increase than urban ones. While the drop appears small, it reflected an estimated two million excess deaths and a temporary halt to one of the country’s most consistent demographic achievements.

The female advantage emerges 🔗

Globally, women tend to outlive men, but this was not always true in India. In the 1950s, Indian men actually had a slight longevity advantage. The male advantage was reversed only in the early 1980s, and by 2024 a newborn girl could expect to live more than three years longer than a newborn boy. Today, female life expectancy stands at around 72.5 years compared with 68.5 years for males, according to the SRS-based Abridged Life Tables 2019-2023. Interestingly, this female advantage is much larger in richer states and relatively small in poorer ones, reflecting how social conditions can amplify or suppress biological survival advantages.

State-wise variations: a tale of two Indias 🔗

The national average masks dramatic regional differences. The gap between the best- and worst-performing states is roughly a decade of life, which translates into vast differences in family life, productivity, and opportunity.

The high performers 🔗

Kerala continues to lead the country by a wide margin. According to the 2023 SRS estimates, Kerala’s life expectancy stood at around 75.1 years, making it comparable to many middle-income countries. Himachal Pradesh, Delhi, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu also perform well, with life expectancies generally above 73 years. Kerala’s female life expectancy of 78 years is especially striking and reflects decades of investment in literacy, primary healthcare, and maternal and child welfare.

The lagging states 🔗

At the other end, states in the central and eastern belt continue to fall well below the national average. SRS data for 2018-22 showed Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh with the lowest life expectancies, often five to seven years below Kerala. Bihar presents a particularly interesting case: while its overall life expectancy is below the national average, the gender gap is unusually narrow (only about 0.6 years between females and males), suggesting that women in the state face health disadvantages that erode their biological survival advantage.

Urban-rural divide 🔗

Place of residence also matters. Urban life expectancy was 72.9 years in 2017-21, while rural life expectancy was 68.5 years, a gap of over four years. This reflects differences in healthcare access, sanitation, nutrition, and exposure to occupational hazards.

Factors driving life expectancy trends 🔗

Several interconnected factors explain both the long upward trend and the persistent inequalities.

Decline in infant and child mortality 🔗

The single biggest driver of rising life expectancy has been the steep fall in infant and child mortality. India’s infant mortality rate has dropped from around 120 per 1,000 live births in the 1970s to roughly 28 per 1,000 in recent years. Because deaths in the first year of life weigh heavily in life table calculations, these gains translate directly into longer average lifespans. Wider immunisation, oral rehydration therapy for diarrhoea, antibiotics for respiratory infections, and improved neonatal care have all contributed.

Healthcare system expansion 🔗

Public health programmes have steadily expanded access to care. The National Rural Health Mission, launched in 2005 and later subsumed under the National Health Mission, dramatically increased primary healthcare reach in villages. Schemes like Janani Suraksha Yojana incentivised institutional deliveries, while the Universal Immunization Programme has continued to widen vaccine coverage. More recently, Ayushman Bharat aims to provide financial protection against catastrophic health expenditure for around 500 million people.

Socio-economic development 🔗

Rising household incomes, better nutrition, cleaner water, improved sanitation, and higher female literacy have all played supporting roles. The Swachh Bharat Mission improved sanitation coverage, while education levels, particularly female education, correlate strongly with better child survival and family health outcomes. Kerala’s relatively low infant and child mortality compares with rates in the Western world, while states like Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh continue to record figures comparable to some of the poorest countries globally.

Persisting inequalities 🔗

Caste, tribe, geography, and wealth continue to shape life chances. Children born into Scheduled Tribe families in rural India face significantly higher mortality risks, with studies showing them 19 per cent more likely to die in the neonatal period and 45 per cent more likely in the post-neonatal period compared with other social groups. These disparities reflect not just income gaps but also differences in healthcare reach, maternal education, and environmental conditions.

The rising burden of non-communicable diseases 🔗

As communicable disease deaths have fallen, lifestyle-related conditions like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory illness have emerged as leading killers, particularly for adults. Tobacco use, alcohol consumption, air pollution, and sedentary lifestyles disproportionately affect men, partly explaining the male-female gap in longevity. Managing this epidemiological transition will be central to whether India’s life expectancy continues to climb in the coming decades.

The road ahead 🔗

India’s life expectancy gains over the past 50 years are among the most significant public health stories anywhere. Yet the post-pandemic dip, the persistent state-wise gulf, and the slowing pace of improvement in adult mortality all suggest that the next phase of progress will be harder won. Reducing the gap between Kerala and Bihar, addressing male mortality from non-communicable diseases, strengthening rural healthcare, and protecting marginalised communities will determine whether the average Indian newborn in 2050 lives noticeably longer than one born today. The life table is, in a sense, a mirror held up to society, and what it reflects depends on the choices made in policy, investment, and equity.

What do you think? Why do some Indian states continue to lag behind despite decades of national health programmes, and what role should state governments play in closing the longevity gap? Could the pandemic-era reversal in life expectancy become a longer-term setback if non-communicable diseases continue to rise unchecked?

References

1. https://censusindia.gov.in/census.website/node/352
2. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/health/soe-2026-indias-life-expectancy-trajectory-so-far
3. https://www.downtoearth.org.in/health/life-expectancy-in-india-drops-for-the-first-time-in-five-decades-2020-21-saw-2-million-excess-deaths
4. https://www.dataforindia.com/life-expectancy/
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6. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/394748387_Life_Expectancy_at_Birth_-_2018-22_-_Source_-_SRS_Life_Table_-_2018_-_2022
7. https://www.who.int/data/gho/data/indicators/indicator-details/GHO/infant-mortality-rate-(probability-of-dying-between-birth-and-age-1-per-1000-live-births)
8. https://nhm.gov.in/index1.php?lang=1&level=1&sublinkid=969&lid=49
9. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6475182/
10. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4510772/