Babes born in 2011 have 79 years to go

The average life expectancy of babies born in 2011 edged up from a year earlier as improving medical technologies and more interest in child care helped reduce death risks, a report showed yesterday.

Babies born last year are expected to live an average of 81.2 years, up from 80.8 years tallied in 2010, according to the report by Statistics Korea. The figure represents a marked increase from 76.5 years in 2001.

Male babies are expected to live for 77.6 years, while female babies are expected to live 84.5 years, the report showed.

The figures were up from 77.2 and 84.1 years tallied a year earlier, the report showed.

The life expectancies for male and female babies here are 0.6 years and two years longer than the average figures for 34 member countries of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the report showed.

The gap in life expectancy between male and female babies stood at 6.8 years, which is in line with the range of the previous year. The gap peaked at 8.4 years in 1985.

The chances that newborn babies could lose their life to cancer stood at 27.7 percent for male babies and 16.6 percent for female babies.

If the death risk from cancer is excluded, the life expectancies for male and female babies would increase by 4.7 years and 2.7 years, respectively, according to the report.

Yonhap