Up to 4 percent of baby girls born last year are likely to live up to 100 years, government figures showed on Tuesday.

Out of the male infants, about 1 percent would live to be 100, according to Statistics Korea.

This is the first time that the office, which announces life expectancy figures every year, indicated how long newborns would live to be.

On average, the life expectancy for newborns born last year reached 81.2, up 0.4 years from the year before. Among them, males were expected to live until 77.6 years of age, while women would live to be 84.5 years.

The figures per gender respectively were 0.6 year and 2 years higher than the OECD average, the statistical office said.

The 6.8-year difference in the age expectancy between male and female babies born last year was also over a year wider than the average gap among OECD nations, meaning Korean women live slightly longer than men compared to women in other regions of similar levels of economic development.

The gap is narrower between men and women who are currently middle-aged or above.

Men who are aged 40 ― an age when hospitals start suggesting intensified medicals ― are expected to live another 39 years more, while women of the same age will live 45.4 more years, meaning a life expectancy gap of almost six years.

The average life expectancy for those aged 60 or older rises statistically because it excludes those who succombed to early death. Men who are 60 years old will live 21.4 more years, while their female counterparts live another 26.5 years, putting the gender gap at nearly five years.

Cancer, especially lung cancer, was expected to be the most common cause of death for males born last year, followed by cancer in the stomach and liver. The most common causes of death for females were diseases related to the circulatory system.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)