Life expectancy in Bosnia and Herzegovina 1900-2020

Life expectancy at birth was approximately 35 years in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the beginning of the twentieth century. It remained around this level until the First World War and Spanish Flu Epidemic caused it to drop to 32 in the 1910s. Following this, life expectancy increased to over 45 years by 1940, however it then dropped by almost twenty years as a result of the Second World War; this reduction was not only because of the conflict, but also due to a series of ethnically motivated genocides in the Balkans. Following the war, life expectancy continued along its previous trajectory, reaching almost 72 years in 1990. The outbreak of the Bosnian War and the instability caused by Yugoslavia's collapse saw life expectancy drop slightly in the early 1990s, before it then rose again at the end of the century. Today, life expectancy from birth in Bosnia and Herzegovina is over 77 years.