The latest study released by the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics) shows that Brazilians got 2 months and 12 days added to their life expectancy at birth.
While their life expectation was 71.7 years in 2004 this number went up to 71.9 years in 2005. The 2005 Life Table released this December 1st by the IBGE also shows that not all Brazilian are born with the same life expectancy.
While those from the Northeastern state of Alagoas shouldn’t expect to live more than 66 years, Brazilians born in capital Brasília have a much promising outlook being allowed to dream of living almost 9 years more or till they reach the age of 74.9.
Infant mortality is the main factor to explain such a discrepancy. And the numbers also show that despite the large gap things used to be worse. In 2000, Brasília had an advantage of 9.8 years over Alagoas, a state with a little less than 3 million inhabitants and one of the only two Brazilian states with a HDI (Human Developing Index) below 0.65.
Between 2000 and 2005, Brazil’s child mortality rate (this applies to children who die before becoming one year old) fell 14.3% from 30.1 deaths per 1,000 births to 25.8 deaths.
The state with the lowest child mortality is Rio Grande do Sul in the country’s extreme south, with 14.3 deaths per 1,000 followed by São Paulo, with 16.5. On the other hand, Alagoas (53.7 deaths per thousand) and Maranhão (42.1) come on the bottom of the rung.
The latest data also show that the average annual population growth in Brazil during the 1990s was 1.6%. The number of Brazilians went up from 146.9 million in 1991 to 169 million in 2000. The IBGE’s estimate for the number of inhabitants in Brazil, at the end of Saturday, December 2, however, was 187.679.247.
As for the segment of those aged 65 years old or older it grew 41% during the nineties and it’s expected they will keep growing at a yearly rate close to 4% in the coming years.
