Life expectancy rate rises to 72.6yrs

The life expectancy rate at birth has increased to 72.6 years in the country in 2019 from 72.3 years one year ago with women enjoying three years more longevity than men.

Men’s life expectancy rose from 70.8 years in 2018 to 71.1 years in 2019, while that of women soared from 73.8 years to 74.2 years, the latest official statistics said.

Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) on Tuesday unveiled Bangladesh Sample Vital Statistics report 2019 prepared under the third phase of Monitoring the Situation of Vital Statistics of Bangladesh (MSVSB) Project.

Planning Minister MA Mannan joined the report unveiling event as the chief guest. BBS organized the event on a virtual platform. MSVSB project director AKM Ashraful Haque presented the highlights of the report..

Statistics and Informatics Division (SID) Secretary Mohammad Yamin Chowdhury and BBS Director General Mohammad Tajul Islam also attended the virtual meeting.

The report showed that the life expectancy rate in Bangladesh was 70.7 years in 2014 and 67.2 years in 2009.

Crude birth rate (CBR), on the other hand, slightly fell from 18.3 in 2018 to 18.1 per 1000 population with urban CBR falling more to 15.9 from

16.1 but rural CBR is declining modestly to 20 from 20.1.

BBS has estimated the country’s total population at 167.43 million on January 01, 2020, including 83.80 million men and 83.63 million women. Total population was 164.6 million in 2018.

The country’s general poverty rate declined to 20.5 percent and extreme poverty rate to 10.5 percent in 2019 from 21.8 percent and 11.3 percent respectively in 2018, new statistics suggests.

BBS estimated the new poverty rates for 2019, 2018 and 2017 based upon data Household Income and Survey (HIES) 2016 data when general poverty rate was 24.3 percent and extreme poverty rate 12.9 percent.

Total fertility rate per women aged between 15 to 49 years marginally declined to 2.04 in 2019 from 2.05 in 2018 with urban total fertility rate declining from 1.68 to 1.67 and that of rural area from 2.38 to 2.37.

General fertility rate per 1000 women was found at 67 while it was 76 and 55 respectively in rural and urban areas.

Adult literacy rate for 15+ aged population slightly increased to 74.7 percent last year from 73.9 percent a year earlier while literacy rate for the population aged over 7 years rose from 73.2 percent to 74.4 percent.

Under-five child mortality rate for every thousand live birth dropped to 28 which was 29 one year ago, while maternal mortality rate per 1,000 live births slipped from 1.69 to 1.65. The crude death rate for every 1000 population fell to 4.9 in 2019 from 5 a year earlier.

Mean age of marriage for male was found to be 25.3 years in 2019, slightly down from 25.5 years in 2018, while that of female remained static at 18.9 years for two consecutive years.

The mean age of first marriage for men came down to 24.2 years from 24.4 in one year. Mean age of first marriage for women dropped from 18.6 years to 18.5 years.

Access to drinking water marginally increased to 98.1 percent in 2019 which remained static at 98 percent in the previous three years.

Use of sanitary latrine improved to 81.5 percent last year from 78.1 percent one year ago, according to the vital statistics.

Electricity coverage improved to 93.5 percent in 2019 which was 90.1 percent a year earlier but solar power use fell 3.3 percent which was 4.8 percent in 2018 and 5.8 percent in 2017.

Use of kerosene as the source of light drastically fell to 2.9 percent from 5 percent a year earlier, suggest BBS data.

Use of contraceptive increased 63.4 percent last year which was 63.1 one year ago while use of modern method improved to 62.1 percent from 61.6 percent.

Males’ dominance in the families is on the decline as the number of male headed households fell to 85.4 percent from 85.8 percent one year ago. On the other hand, the number of women headed households rose from 14.2 percent to 14.6 percent.

The internal migration trend slowed to 72.4 per 1,000 population in 2019 which was higher at 72.8 a year earlier.

Crude disability rate per 1,000 population was found lower at 8.4 percent last year which was 8.5 percent in 2018.

Awareness among people with regard to at least one mode of HIV transmission increased to 70.1 percent which was 68.9 percent one year ago.

Source: BSS