India’s Life Expectancy Down By 2.6 Yrs Between 2019 And 2020
In India, marginalised social groups suffer the most as Muslims registered the largest decline from 68.8 years in 2019 to 63.4 years in 2020, a loss of 5.4 years
India’s life expectancy declined by 2.6 years between 2019 and 2020, as the country faced the wrath of covid-19 pandemic. The socially- disadvantaged groups experienced the most significant losses during the period, according to a research paper by Science Advances.
The study titled ‘Large and unequal life expectancy declines during the Covid-19 pandemic in India in 2020,’ revealed that life expectancy at birth in India was 69.1 years in 2019, which declined to 66.6 years in 2020. Females saw a sharp dip in their life expectancy as compared to the males. The female life expectancy at birth dipped by 3.1 years as compared to 2.1 years for males, it added.
Notably, marginalised social groups suffered the most as Muslims registered the largest decline from 68.8 years in 2019 to 63.4 years in 2020, a loss of 5.4 years. Scheduled tribes (STs) followed with a decline of 4.1 years and Scheduled Castes (SCs) saw a reduction of 2.7 years. Among Muslims, females saw a dip of 6.6 years as compared to 4.6 years for males.
“It is not clear whether differences across social groups are coming from direct effects of Covid, indirect effects arising from the disruptions associated with lockdown, changes in marginalisation and discrimination,” the paper mentioned.
Young individuals and those aged 50 to 60 registered the biggest decline, the paper stated. The increase in mortality in the age group 0-19 and 60-79 among females contributed the most to the decline.
‘Even though absolute increases in mortality were highest in the oldest ages, mortality increases in the younger ages contributed substantially to life expectancy losses because life expectancy is more sensitive to early-life mortality,’ the paper highlighted.
The study used data from the National Family Health Survey 2019-21 (NFHS-5) and analysed the data from one-fourth of the country’s population. The study used the phase-2 data from the NFHS survey as it included households interviewed in 2021. Gupta mentioned, “NFHS asks a question on deaths of household members since 2017, which allowed for the analysis for 2019 and 2020 for the same set of households.”
