Longest lives likely in Iceland

Press, 12 April 1983, Page 24

Longest lives likely in Iceland

By

ANTHONY GOODMAN

of Reuters For the prospect of a long life, Iceland is the place to be born, according to a United Nations Demographic Yearbook, just published. Norway, the Netherlands, Japan, and Sweden also offer the statistical likelihood of living to a ripe old age. The yearbook contains a vast array of data concerning all aspects of the world’s population, estimated at 4508 million in mid--1981, an increase of 76 million over the previous year. It shows that women in Iceland enjoy the longest life expectancy at birth — 79.7 years. Icelanders also head the list of long-living males with an expectancy of 73.7 years. New-born girls in more than 20 other countries can also look forward to celebrating at least their 75th birthday. They are: Norway (79.0), the Netherlands (78.9), Japan and Sweden (78.8), the Faeroe Islands (78.7), France (78.2), the United States and Australia (77.8), Finland (77.6), Canada (77.5), Denmark (77.3), West Germany, England and Wales (76.4) Spain, Switzerland and Austria (76.2), Puerto Rico (76.1), Italy (75.9), Israel (75.7), New Zealand (75.5) and Belgium (75.1). There are also more than a dozen countries, in addition to Iceland, were males at birth can expect to live at least to the age of 70:

Japan (73.3), Sweden (72.8), the Netherlands (72.4), Norway (72.3), Israel (72.1), Cyprus (71.9), Denmark (71.2) Australia (70.8), Spain (70.4), Switzerland (70.3), England and Wales, Canada (70.2) and Greece (70.1). By contrast, females in 47 countries or areas in Africa have a life expectancy at birth of less than 50 years.

Africa also accounts for the 10 countries with the highest crude birth rates — figures which do not take into account the proportion of women of child-bearing age in a population. They are: Kenya, with 53.8 births per 1000 people, Niger (51.4), Rwanda (51.0), Botswana (50.7), Mauritania (50.2), Ethiopia, Liberia and Nigeria (49.8), Mali (49.4) and Zambia (49.2).

The 10 countries with the lowest crude birth rates are all in Western Europe: West Germany (10.1), Denmark (10.4), Italy (11.2), Sweden (11.3), Switzerland (11.6), Luxembourg (12.0), Austria and the Netherlands (12.5), Belgium (12.6), and Norway (12.8).

For the world as a whole, the birth rate during the period 1975-80 was 29 births per 1000 people. One of the main findings recorded in the demographic yearbook is that the 25 most populous countries or areas, accounting for nearly 80 per cent of the total world population, have almost all experienced declines in fertility. China’s birth rate, which stood at 33.8 births per 1000 in the period 1960-65, was down to 21.3 by 1975-80.

Just over one third of all people on earth in 1980 were aged under 15 and 6 per cent were aged 65 or older, reflecting little change in the age distribution since 1975. But while the proportion of those aged 65 or older was highest in Europe (13 per cent), North America (11 per cent), and the soviet Union (10 per cent), in Africa they accounted for only 3 per cent of the population and in Asia and Latin America only 4 per cent. In Africa, 45 per cent of the population comprised youngsters less than 15-years-old. The corresponding figure for Latin American was 40 per cent and for Asia 37 per cent. In almost every region of the world, about 60 per cent of the population was in the 15 to 64 age-group.