What is the average life expectancy in the world? Do you know which country has the highest life expectancy? Who has a longer lifespan? Man or woman?

Life expectancy is well-defined as the statistical measure of the average time a human, or any organism is projected to live. This is constructed on when they were born, how old are they now and other demographic factors including sex.

In average, life expectancy is 71.8 years ( 68 years and 6 months for males and 73 years and 6 months for females). Woman, on average has a longer lifespan in most of the countries. One reason for this is that women tends to cope better with stress than men. Men are more likely to deal with stress with violence and aggression. This difference alone is a huge factor regarding the longevity of both sexes lives.

The Philippines ranks at 124th place out of 183 countries in the world for the longest life expectancy with an average of 68.5 years ( 72 years for women, 65.3 for men).  It is so far behind Japan who holds the record with an unbelievable life expectancy of 83 years.  This standing of our country is due to some factors which includes poverty, environmental pollution, and poor health services existing to our countrymen. Another huge reason for this is the rapidly growing unemployment rate in our country, because money matters when it comes to how long you wanted to live.

On the other hand, the good news is that life expectancy has increased by 5 years between year 2000 and 2015. In conclusion, life expectancy is gradually increasing in the past few decades, thanks to all these technologies which we have today. But what’s more important is that if you want to live longer, you need to help yourself. You have to practice to eat healthy, exercise, stay away from stress, and finally, live your life to the fullest. As one saying goes, “It does not matter how long you live, but how well you do it.”

By: Sharmaine A. Tolentino | RN | DOH Limay