Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa and the seventh most populous country in the world, with an estimated 206 million inhabitants as of late 2019. It has the third-largest youth population in the world, after India and China, with nearly half its population under the age of eighteen.
The 2020 Human Development Report presents the 2019 HDI (values and ranks) for 189 countries and UN-recognized territories, along with the IHDI for 152 countries, the GDI for 167 countries, the GII for 162 countries, and the MPI for 107 countries. The HDI is a summary measure for assessing long-term progress in three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, access to knowledge, and a decent standard of living.
A long and healthy life is measured by life expectancy. The knowledge level is measured by mean years of schooling among the adult population, which is the average number of years of schooling received in a lifetime by people aged 25 years and older; and access to learning and knowledge by expected years of schooling for children of school-entry age, which is the total number of years of schooling a child of school-entry age can expect to receive if prevailing patterns of age-specific enrolment rates stay the same throughout the child’s life.
What Is Life Expectancy?
Life expectancy is the statistical age that a person is expected to live until, based on actuarial data. There are many uses for it in the financial world, including life insurance, pension planning, and U.S. Social Security benefits. In most countries, the calculations for this actuarial age is derived from a national statistical agency based on large amounts of data.
Understanding Life Expectancy
Life expectancy is the single most influential factor that insurance companies use to determine life insurance premiums. Using actuarial tables provided by the Internal Revenue Service, these companies try to minimize the liability risk.
There are several factors that affect your life expectancy, the two single most important being when you were born and your gender. Additional factors that can influence your life expectancy include:
- Your race
- Personal health
- Family medical history
- Whether you smoke cigarettes or make other risky lifestyle choices
It’s important to note that life expectancy changes over time. That’s because as you age, actuaries use complex formulas that factor out people who are younger than you but who have died. As you continue to age past mid-life, you outlive an increasing number of people who are younger than you, so your life expectancy actually increases. In other words, the older you get (past a certain age), the older you are likely to get.
Overall, human life expectancy has been rapidly increasing during the past two hundred years, particularly in developing countries. In 2020, the average life expectancy in the United States is 78.9 years.
Nigeria’s HDI value and rank
Nigeria’s HDI value for 2019 is 0.539— which put the country in the low human development category— positioning it at 161 out of 189 countries and territories. Between 2005 and 2019, Nigeria’s HDI value increased from 0.465 to 0.539, an increase of 15.9 percent. Table A reviews Nigeria’s progress in each of the HDI indicators. Between 1990 and 2019, Nigeria’s life expectancy at birth increased by 8.8 years, mean years of schooling increased by 1.4 years, and expected years of schooling increased by 3.3 years. Nigeria’s GNI per capita increased by about 58.0 percent between 1990 and 2019.
Average Life Expectancy In Nigeria
The current life expectancy for Nigeria in 2021 is 55.12 years, a 0.57% increase from 2020.
- The life expectancy for Nigeria in 2020 was 54.81 years, a 0.58% increase from 2019.
- The life expectancy for Nigeria in 2019 was 54.49 years, a 0.58% increase from 2018.
- The life expectancy for Nigeria in 2018 was 54.18 years, a 0.83% increase from 2017.
Why is life expectancy low in Nigeria?
Nigeria’s low life expectancy rate can be attributed to the fact that the country has a lot of health issues, with the AIDS epidemic as the major player in the low life expectancy. That apart, Nigeria has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rates and the widespread growth of the polio virus in the world.
Life Expectancy and Life Insurance
Life expectancy is the primary factor in determining an individual’s risk factor and the likelihood they will make a claim. Insurance companies consider age, lifestyle choices, family medical history, and several other factors when determining premium rates for individual life insurance policies.
There is a direct correlation between your life expectancy and how much you’ll be charged for a life insurance policy. The younger you are when you purchase a life insurance policy, the longer you are likely to live. That means there is a lower risk to the life insurance company because you are less likely to die in the near term, which would require a payout of the full benefit of your policy before you have paid much into the policy.
Conversely, the longer you wait to purchase life insurance, the lower your life expectancy, and that translates into a higher risk for the life insurance company. Companies compensate for that risk by charging a higher premium.
The principle of life expectancy suggests that you should purchase a life insurance policy for yourself and your spouse sooner rather than later. Not only will you save money through lower premium costs, but you will also have longer for your policy to accumulate value and become a potentially significant financial resource as you age.
Retirement and Annuity Planning
In Nigeria, employment in the public sector is subject to a mandatory retirement age of 60 years or 35 years of service, whichever is first. However, there are sector-specific exceptions as to the age of retirement. For instance, the compulsory retiring age of academic staff of a University is 65 years. Life expectancy is critical for retirement planning. Many aging workers arrange their retirement plans’ asset allocations based on a prediction of how long they expect to live. Personal, rather than statistical, life expectancy is a primary factor in the character of a retirement plan. When couples are planning for retirement or annuity payments, they often use a joint life expectancy in which they take the life expectancy of their partner (who may become the beneficiary of a retirement fund or annuity plan) into account as well.
Your life expectancy is also a significant factor when arranging annuity payments with an insurance company. In an annuity contract, the insurance company agrees to pay a certain amount of money for a fixed period or until the policyholder’s death. It’s important to take life expectancy into account when negotiating annuity contracts. If you agree to receive payouts for a specific period, it is tantamount to estimating how long you might expect to live. You may also elect to use a single-life annuity payment plan in which annuity payments will cease after your death.
