Parliamentary QA
GAP BETWEEN AVERAGE AND HEALTHY LIFE EXPECTANCY OF SINGAPORE RESIDENTS AND TRENDS OVER PAST 10 YEARS
8 September 2026
NOTICE PAPER NO. 1206
NOTICE OF QUESTION FOR WRITTEN ANSWER
FOR THE SITTING OF PARLIAMENT ON 8 SEPTEMBER 2026
Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament
Mr Jackson Lam
MP for Nee Soon GRC
Question No. 1856
To ask the Coordinating Minister for Social Policies and Minister for Health (a) what is the current gap between the average life expectancy and healthy life expectancy of Singapore residents; and (b) how this gap has changed over the past 10 years.
Answer
Estimates for life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy for Singapore’s total population1 from the Global Burden of Disease 2023 Study are in the table below. The difference between life expectancy and health-adjusted life expectancy has increased from 10.6 years in 2014 to 11.2 years in 20232. The OECD average is 12.6 years for 2023.
Table caption
2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | |
Life expectancy (LE) | 84.0 | 84.3 | 84.6 | 84.8 | 85.1 | 85.4 | 85.7 | 85.3 | 84.6 | 85.4 |
Health Adjusted Life expectancy (HALE) | 73.4 | 73.6 | 73.8 | 74.0 | 74.2 | 74.4 | 74.5 | 74.2 | 73.6 | 74.1 |
LE-HALE2 | 10.6 | 10.7 | 10.8 | 10.8 | 10.9 | 11.0 | 11.2 | 11.1 | 11.0 | 11.2 |
1 Estimates for Singapore resident population are not available.
2 Values in the table are rounded to the nearest 1 decimal place. LE−HALE values are calculated using unrounded estimates, and may not correspond exactly to the displayed LE and HALE values due to rounding.