Irish Examiner view: Today’s babies may live for 105 years

Life expectancy reaches a high of 119 in Europe but is as low as 61 in Africa as poverty exacts its toll

Data shows the only child due to be born in Andorra this weekend will have the longest average life expectancy, an incredible 119 years.

Though the passage of time is relentless it is, in one context at least, becoming more flexible, more open-ended. Unicef estimates that Irish babies born in 2021 can, all going well, live to be 105 years of age — they have a very real prospect of reaching 2126.

Data shows the only child due to be born in Andorra this weekend will have the longest average life expectancy, an incredible 119 years. 

The 234 babies due to be born in Switzerland are expected to live to 116 while their French peers could live to 114.

At the other end of the scale — there is always one — the 1,700 plus souls born in the Central African Republic and Chad this weekend are expected to live until just 61 years of age — the world’s lowest life expectancy.

Poverty exacts its relentless toll.

Chief executive of Unicef Ireland Peter Power said that this would be “a critical year for children” and called on nations to renew their commitments to supporting “the young lives who will inherit the world we leave”. 

The year 2021 also marks the 75th anniversary of Unicef.

Life expectancy may change but the pressing issues — protecting children from conflict, disease and exclusion, and championing their right to survival, health and education — hardly do.