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At 80, a Nigerian and a Norwegian are far closer than at birth

Nigeria's life expectancy at birth is about 19 years below Norway's. Among people who have already reached the 80–84 age band, the same WHO life tables put their expected age at death within 1.9 years of each other.

By The SnapLongevity Team8 min read

Four adults in their eighties laughing over a card game around a table in a plain community hall.
Reaching an older age changes which part of the life table applies: the figure quoted at birth describes a whole population, while a later row describes only those who have reached that age.

In the WHO Global Health Estimates for 2021, life expectancy at birth is 63.4 years in Nigeria and 82.9 in Norway. Follow the same two life tables to people who have already reached the 80–84 band and the picture changes almost beyond recognition: expected age at death is 87.1 years in Nigeria and 89.0 in Norway.

A difference of about 19 years at birth has become a difference of 1.9. Nothing about Nigeria improved between those two rows. The population being described changed: the second row refers only to people who survived to eighty, and survival to eighty is exactly what the first row was measuring the absence of.

19years
Nigeria–Norway difference at birth

63.4 against 82.9 years

1.9years
Difference in expected age at death, 80–84 band

87.1 against 89.0 years

7.1years
Remaining life expectancy in Nigeria at 80–84

Norway: 9.0 years

WHO Global Health Estimates abridged life tables, both sexes, 2021. Values are read at the start of the published 80–84 age band; the source does not publish single years of age.

Two numbers, moving in opposite directions

Every age in a life table carries two figures, and they behave differently as a person gets older. Remaining life expectancy generally falls with age — an eighty-year-old has fewer years ahead than a fifty-year-old. Expected age at death, which is simply the age reached plus those remaining years, generally rises.

Remaining life expectancy

The average number of further years expected from the age already reached. In these tables it declines as the age reached rises.

Expected age at death

That figure plus the current age. It rises with the age reached, because surviving to an age removes the possibility of having died before it.

Both come from the same life table row. Quoting one and calling it the other is a common misreading of these tables.

How far apart are countries once people have already grown old?

Expected age at death, by the age already reached

At birth

Already reached age 50(50–54 band)

Already reached age 60(60–64 band)

Already reached age 70(70–74 band)

Already reached age 80(80–84 band)

Nigeria: at age birth, expected age at death 63.4 years; at age 50, expected age at death 76.1 years; at age 60, expected age at death 78.5 years; at age 70, expected age at death 82.1 years; at age 80, expected age at death 87.1 years. Norway: at age birth, expected age at death 82.9 years; at age 50, expected age at death 84.1 years; at age 60, expected age at death 84.8 years; at age 70, expected age at death 86.3 years; at age 80, expected age at death 89.0 years. Japan: at age birth, expected age at death 84.5 years; at age 50, expected age at death 85.7 years; at age 60, expected age at death 86.6 years; at age 70, expected age at death 88.2 years; at age 80, expected age at death 90.8 years.

WHO Global Health Estimates abridged life tables, both sexes, 2021. Each row uses the start of a published age band (0, 50–54, 60–64, 70–74, 80–84); no value between bands is interpolated. Expected age at death is the age reached plus remaining life expectancy at that band.

The same pattern in three countries at once

Swipe the table sideways to see all columns.

Remaining life expectancy and expected age at death, by age band
Age reachedNigeriaNorwayJapanWidest gap
At birth63.482.984.521.1
50–5476.184.185.79.6
60–6478.584.886.68.1
70–7482.186.388.26.2
80–8487.189.090.83.7

WHO Global Health Estimates abridged life tables, both sexes, 2021. The first row is life expectancy at birth; the remaining rows show expected age at death — the start of the age band plus remaining life expectancy at that band. No value is interpolated between bands.

Read down the last column: the spread between these three countries falls at every step. Japan, the longest-lived country in the dataset, keeps an advantage at every age, but the size of it shrinks as the comparison moves to older survivors. Compare Norway and Japan at 65.

Why the differences compress

Two mechanisms are at work, and they are worth separating because only one of them is good news.

  • Arithmetic: each death at a young age removes more potential years than a death in old age, so mortality earlier in life can weigh heavily on life expectancy at birth. Once those ages are behind a person, whatever difference they created no longer applies to them.
  • Selection: in a high-mortality country, reaching eighty means having survived risks that many contemporaries did not. Those survivors are not a random sample of the population they were born into, and comparing them to Norwegian eighty-year-olds is not comparing like with like.

The convergence is therefore not evidence that later-life conditions are similar across countries. It is evidence about where in the age range national differences are generated — and a warning against reading an at-birth figure as a statement about the future of anyone who is already old.

Life expectancy at 60: WHO's own older-age measure

WHO reports age 60 as its headline older-age indicator, alongside healthy life expectancy (HALE) at 60. Across 185 countries in 2021, remaining life expectancy at 60 runs from 12.0 years in Lesotho to 26.6 in Japan; the median country is 18.2 years, of which WHO estimates 13.8 would be lived in full health.

At 60, how many years remain, and how many in good health?

Remaining life expectancy and healthy life expectancy at age 60

Healthy years at 60 (HALE)Remaining years at 60 (full bar)
  • Japan26.6
  • Norway24.8
  • UK23.2
  • USA22.0
  • Brazil19.4
  • Nigeria18.5
  • India15.6

Japan: 26.6 years remaining, 20.4 healthy. Norway: 24.8 years remaining, 18.7 healthy. United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: 23.2 years remaining, 17.5 healthy. United States of America: 22.0 years remaining, 15.7 healthy. Brazil: 19.4 years remaining, 14.4 healthy. Nigeria: 18.5 years remaining, 14.0 healthy. India: 15.6 years remaining, 11.5 healthy

WHO Global Health Estimates, 2021, both sexes, at exact age 60. Full bar: remaining life expectancy at 60. Solid part: healthy life expectancy (HALE) at 60, WHO's estimate of the years lived in full health. Bars start at zero; scale to 30 years. Period estimates, not forecasts for people who are 60 today.

In Norway, a 60-year-old has 24.8 remaining years on 2021 death rates, 18.7 of them in full health by WHO's estimate, and 74% of 60-year-olds would reach 80 (l80 ÷ l60). For women the figures are 25.8 years and 78%; for men 23.8 years and 70%. These are period averages for the whole population of that age and sex, not a forecast for any one person. Healthy years at 60 for every country.

The sex difference narrows too

Sex differences follow the same shape. In Japan, female life expectancy at birth exceeds male by 5.4 years. In remaining years at the 50–54 band the difference is 5.0, and at the 80–84 band it is 2.1.

The gap does not vanish, but in the 2021 Japanese life table the female advantage in remaining years is smaller in the 80–84 band than it is at birth. Why the sex difference takes the size it does is a separate question, addressed by the research on excess male mortality. The sex gap across 185 countries.

Sources

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