Published : 04 Oct 2026, 01:34 PM
Updated : 04 Oct 2026, 01:33 PM
Bangladesh had a higher life expectancy than both India and Pakistan in 2023, according to the World Health Organization's latest global estimates.
Life expectancy at birth in Bangladesh was estimated at 72.7 years, compared with 71 years in India and 68.2 years in Pakistan.
The figures are part of the WHO's latest Global Health Estimates, released on Friday, which track life expectancy, causes of death and disease burden across countries and regions from 2000 to 2023.
Globally, life expectancy reached 73.3 years in 2023, putting Bangladesh 0.6 years below the global estimate.
The figure was close to the 73.4 years recorded in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic. Life expectancy had fallen to 71.5 years globally in 2021 before recovering as the impact of the pandemic receded.
The recovery in healthy life expectancy — the number of years a person can expect to live in "full health" — has been slower.
Global healthy life expectancy reached 62.8 years in 2023, still 0.4 years below its 2019 level.
"Living longer is one of the great achievements of public health," said Alain Labrique, director of the WHO's Department of Data, Digital Health, Analytics and AI.
"The next challenge is to ensure that those additional years are lived in good health, while health systems are equipped to respond to the changing needs of populations."
The latest estimates also point to a continuing shift in the diseases responsible for deaths around the world.
Noncommunicable diseases accounted for 74 percent of global deaths in 2023, up from 58 percent in 2000, with eight of the world's 10 leading causes of death falling into that category.
Cardiovascular diseases remained the leading cause of death and disease burden, while diabetes and dementia have become increasingly prominent.
The WHO estimate for Bangladesh differs slightly from the figure produced by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS).
The BBS's Sample Vital Registration System estimated life expectancy at birth at 72.3 years in 2023, down from 72.4 years a year earlier. The BBS said the 0.1-year decline was not statistically significant.
The WHO uses standardised methods and multiple data sources to produce internationally comparable estimates, and says its figures may differ from national statistics because of differences in data and methodology.
