Long life to Brazilians

São Paulo, Sunday afternoon/ Blablaurgh/Flickr

The land of youth, beauty and barely-there outfits is getting old. Brazilians are living at least three years more than ten years ago. IBGE, the federal  bureau of statistics, released today a study showing that the life expectancy at birth is 72.86 years, superior to the world’s average of 67.58 years. In Brazil, both men and women are living longer but, as it happens elsewhere, there is a huge gap between them – men live, in average, 69.11 years. Women, 76.71. In 20 years, the elder population should be as numerous as the younger one (read about the decrease in the country’s fertility in a previous post).  

Of course, Brazil is still behind developed countries, such as Japan, Switzerland, France or Italy, where life expectancy is beyond 81 years. But, according to the IBGE, the country should reach that milestone in 30 years.    

The institute also informs that child mortality is  falling. Since 1970, it fell from 100 to 23.3 deaths per thousand babies born alive. This means more than 200.000 deaths of children were avoided in the last decade.    

Finally, young men are still at very high risk of dying violently. Every day, 68 men between 15 and 24 years old die of what the IBGE calls “external causes” – accidents and homicides. This makes a total of 272,000 in one decade. The number of women dying of similar causes is up to nine times smaller.  

Most of these numbers – apart from the one associated with violence, which is an old tendency – portrait a country that is changing very, very fast. I bet with you a caipirinha that in a few decades Brazil will have a dramatically different demographics .