Introduction:

A person’s life expectancy is the mean number of remaining years of life in a large group of similar persons. Note that life expectancy is not the predicted survival time, but rather the average survival time of similar persons. For example, a U.S. white male of age 50 has a life expectancy of 27.7 additional years (to age 77.7, on average). His actual survival time could be less than a year or more than 50 years, but the average is 27.7 years.

This life expectancy calculator uses the following inputs: age, sex, race, educational level, and smoking status. Other risk factors, such as diseases and medical conditions, are not considered here. The results are based on standard actuarial methods and government data.

If race, education and smoking are unknown, the life expectancies given will identical to those in standard government publications (e.g., Anderson 1999).

If smoking status is unknown but race and education are known, the life expectancies given will be similar to those of Richards & Abele (1999). The mortality rates and life expectancies cited there were obtained from U.S. government data provided to those authors. The results in this life expectancy calculator are somewhat different because they rely on more recent government mortality data.

If race is unknown but smoking and education are known, the life expectancies given will be similar to those cited in Richards & Abele (1999).

Full documentation is available at http://www.LifeExpectancy.com/software.html.