Note: This is an imagined future story, written as if a projected milestone has occurred. It is based on current trends and evidence, not confirmed events.
For the first time in recorded human history, global average life expectancy has crossed 75 years — a threshold that once seemed reserved for the wealthiest nations now belonging to every region on Earth. The milestone, confirmed in 2035 C.E. by the World Health Organization’s annual global health report, marks the result of decades of compounding progress in medicine, nutrition, sanitation, and maternal care.
Two centuries ago, no country on Earth had a life expectancy above 40 years. Today, the world average has cleared 75 — a number that would have been unimaginable to most of human history.
Key projections
- Global life expectancy: The world average reaches 75.2 years in 2035 C.E., up from roughly 73 years in the early 2020s C.E., continuing a trend that saw life expectancy nearly double over the past two centuries.
- Regional convergence: Sub-Saharan Africa records the steepest gains of any region, with average life expectancy rising from roughly 63 years in 2023 C.E. to 70 years in 2035 C.E., narrowing the gap with wealthier regions faster than any prior decade.
- Child mortality: The global under-five mortality rate falls below five deaths per 1,000 live births in 2035 C.E., down from roughly 37 per 1,000 in 2023 C.E. — one of the most dramatic single-decade drops ever recorded.
What drove the change
No single breakthrough explains the milestone. Instead, it reflects dozens of overlapping advances arriving in close succession.
Vaccine coverage for childhood diseases reached 95% globally by 2032 C.E., closing gaps that had persisted for generations in low-income countries. Oral rehydration therapy, long proven but inconsistently deployed, finally achieved near-universal reach across rural South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa through community health worker networks funded partly by a coalition of national governments and multilateral health bodies.
Antimicrobial resistance — one of the gravest threats to the trend — did not disappear. New antibiotic classes approved between 2027 C.E. and 2033 C.E. bought time, but health authorities are candid that resistance remains an unresolved structural risk that could reverse gains if stewardship fails.
The role of women’s health
Maternal mortality is among the sharpest stories within the larger one. The World Health Organization tracked a 60% reduction in the global maternal mortality ratio between 2000 C.E. and 2030 C.E., with the final years of that trend accelerating as trained birth attendants reached previously isolated communities.
Girls born in the 2030s C.E. in countries that once had the world’s highest maternal death rates are now expected to live into their late 70s.
That shift is inseparable from rising female education levels. Research consistently shows that each additional year of schooling a woman receives correlates with lower child mortality in her household — a relationship that Lancet analyses have documented across multiple generations and geographies.
Where inequalities remain
The global average conceals real and painful differences. A child born today in a high-income country can expect to live to 83. A child born in the lowest-income countries still faces a life expectancy closer to 70. The gap has narrowed — but it has not closed.
Within countries, the inequalities are often sharper still. Indigenous communities in several nations, including Australia, Canada, and the United States, continue to face life expectancy gaps of seven to 10 years compared to national averages, a disparity rooted in histories of dispossession, underfunded health systems, and ongoing environmental inequities. Progress on this front has been slower and more uneven than headline global figures suggest.
This is one dimension of the broader story of one of many global health advances tracked by researchers and advocates over the past century — a story in which progress is real but rarely evenly shared.
A number built over centuries
Our World in Data’s long-run life expectancy series shows that in 1800 C.E., life expectancy at birth was around 30 years in most parts of the world — driven down primarily by devastating child mortality. The shift since then is one of the most consequential transformations in human history, driven not by any single era but by cumulative investments in public health infrastructure, clean water, food security, and medical science.
The 20th century added roughly 30 years to global average life expectancy. The early 21st century has added several more, more evenly distributed than ever before.
United Nations population projections now suggest the global population of people over 65 will double between 2023 C.E. and 2050 C.E. — a demographic shift with enormous implications for healthcare systems, pension structures, and urban design that governments are only beginning to grapple with.
Longer lives also raise harder questions. Research on healthy life expectancy — the years lived in good health, not just alive — shows that gains in total lifespan have not always been matched by equivalent gains in quality of life. Adding years matters most when those years are well.
The 75-year mark is a genuine milestone. It is also a reminder of how much remains to be done — not just to extend life, but to ensure the years being added are ones people actually want to live.
Read more
For more on this story, see: Our World in Data — Life Expectancy
For more from Good News for Humankind, see:
- Renewables now make up at least 49% of global power capacity
- Global suicide rate has fallen by 40% since 1995
- The Good News for Humankind archive on global health
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