Life expectancy hits new high in Western Hemisphere

“Life expectancy in the Americas has reached a record high. According to the Pan American Health Organization’s Health in the Americas 2026 report, life expectancy at birth rose from 73.2 years in 2000 to 77.1 years in 2023, surpassing the pre-pandemic peak of 76.7 years reached in 2019.”

The country with the shortest lifespans in the Western Hemisphere is Haiti. There, people can expect to live only about 65 years.

Canada has the highest life expectancy of any country in the Western Hemisphere, with an average life expectancy of 82.1 years. In Chile and Costa Rica, people live over 81 years on average. In the United States, life expectancy at birth is about 79 years.

Global average life expectancy and income are at an all-time high. Life expectancy is expected to rise by 5 years by 2050. Annual child deaths have fallen by 8 million since 1990.

“The number of children living in extreme poverty fell to a record low of 412 million in 2024, down from 507 million a decade earlier,” reported The Doomslayer. The percentage of children living in poverty has never been lower in human history.

Child labor has fallen sharply.

Poverty has fallen in most of the world since 2021, in each year since then.

Poverty has declined rapidly in the world’s most mountainous country, Bhutan.