South Korean babies born in 2019 are expected to live more than 83 years, data showed Tuesday, amid improved public awareness about health and better medical systems.

Life expectancy at birth averaged 83.3 years last year, six months longer than a year earlier, according to the data compiled by Statistics Korea.

Compared with 10 years ago, the average life expectancy became 3.2 years longer. The tally also marked a sharp hike from 62.3 years in 1970, when the country began compiling related data.

Baby boys and girls born in 2019 are expected to live 80.3 years and 86.3 years, respectively, with the gender gap in life expectancy remaining unchanged at six years for the second straight year.

South Korea's life expectancies for male and female babies are 2.2 years and 2.9 years longer, respectively, than the average of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of 36 advanced nations.

The data showed a 40-year-old Korean man in 2019 is expected to live for the next 41.3 years, while a 40-year-old Korean woman is forecast to live 47.1 years longer.

For those aged 60 last year, men are expected to have 23.3 remaining years for their life expectancy, while women have 28.1 years more.

A baby boy born in 2019 has a 61.7 percent possibility of reaching 80, while the chance of a baby girl living up to 80 years reached 81 percent.

Meanwhile, the statistics agency said cancer was picked as the No. 1 cause of death in the future for babies born in 2019, followed by heart diseases with 11.7 percent and pneumonia with 10.2 percent.

The chance that a person could die of cancer in the future stood at 27 percent for male babies and 16.2 percent for female babies, according to the data.

If the death risk from cancer is excluded, the life expectancies for male and female babies go up 4.7 years and 2.7 years, respectively. (Yonhap)