Life expectancy in Philippines from 1870 to 2020
Life expectancy in the Philippines would decline once more in the 1940s, however, in the 1941 invasion and subsequent occupation of the island nation by the Empire of Japan in the Second World War, in which famine and causalities of war would result in the death of an estimated 500,000 Filipinos. Despite significant destruction in the Second World War, and an ending to the bulk of American investment in the country following its independence from the U.S. in 1946, life expectancy in the Philippines would quickly rise in the post-war years as the country would modernize; almost doubling in the two decades between 1945 and 1965 alone. It then plateaued throughout the 1970s and 1980s, during the authoritarian regime of Ferdinand Marcos, before the People Power Revolution in 1986 returned democracy to the country, and living standards began to improve once more. Life expectancy has also increased since this time, and in 2020, it is estimated that the average person born in the Philippines can expect to live to just over the age of 71 years old.