Calculating Your Life Expectancy

Each Christmas my mum thinks it’s going to be her last. She believes she’s living on borrowed time because she doesn’t understand what life expectancy means. It’s only an estimate which predicts that half the women, born in the same year as her, would die by the time they were 81.

Life expectancy is a statistical average, and 50% is the average. My mum is in the half that live longer and because she’s in that half she can expect to live a lot longer yet. At 85 her official life expectancy is 91.5 and she still has a 50/50 chance of living longer than that. Even 100 year olds are expected to live approximately another 2 years.

Governments publish tables to show what your life expectancy is at any age.

American Life Expectancy

United Kingdom Life Expectancy

Or search Google for the name of your country and Life Expectancy Table.

Some countries may present the information differently, but they usually include a column of ages from 1 to 100 and a column of remaining life expectancy. The number of remaining years shown alongside your age, plus your age, equals your life expectancy.

National averages are a valid starting point, but if it was that simple, I wouldn’t be writing this blog. Other factors such as diet and lifestyle have an effect, but right now, I don’t know which diet is best or how my current lifestyle influences my life expectancy. That’s part of the challenge.