Why is the life expectancy important to a developed country?

Life expectancy is a useful indicator of general health in every country, first of all.

In developed countries:

• Elderly people make the heaviest use of health care and certain other resources. Since they are no longer contributing their labour at this time in this lives the wealth that must be diverted to pay for this must be regarded as a burden on the remainder of the population. Life expectancy is one crude measure of this burden.
• Elderly people may receive any of a variety of pension benefits. The longer they live the greater will be the cost to society of these benefits.