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For example, life expectancy in Russia in 1945 was 23.6 years.

► Does this mean that ANYONE alive in 1945 was expected to die at around 24 years of age (on average)?

► Or does this mean that people born in 1945 were expected to live only 24 years (on average)?

Follow-up question: Is there a name for or a way to find data for the OTHER definition?

Orophile
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SAL
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2 Answers2

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Usually "life expectancy" is calculated from a so called life table. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_table

A life table consists of the population from a certain year, how many lived and how many died. From that you can calculate the probability of death for each age that year. From that you can calculate a life expectancy from a person who was born that year and who experienced the same probability of death through out it's life as in that year. So "life expectancy" is sort of an artificial index so to speak and it doesn't really represent an expected value for any certain cohort.

anders
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Anyone born in Russia in 1945 is expected to live on average 23.6 years if the cohort born in 1945 is subjected for all of its life to the mortality conditions of 1945.

And there are no reliable data on mortality conditions in Russia in 1945 so nobody knows what the actual life expectancy at birth was in this year. The figure “23.6” is somebody’s guess.

Kirill
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