Am I missing something?

jamesd

According to the ONS the actual answer is 29.44 years for a male and 32.02 years for a female.

This is using the 2014-based cohort life principal projection for the whole UK.

TriathNanEilean

Thanks for the correction. The Calculator program I found claimed it was using ONS data but I should have been less trusting.

LXdaddy

Originally Posted by kidmugsy
Without googling for it, just tell us what you think the life expectancy of the average 58 year old male is.

TriathNanEilean wrote: »

I didn't see an answer (not a definitive one anyway) in the rest of the thread. I was interested so I found a calculator and got the answer (for 58 y.o. male in UK) of 24.11 more years. 82.11.

I SUSPECT that kidmugsy's post was intended to get you to first give your estimate of life expectancy and then go and look at something like ONS projection. Many people underestimate their life expectancy.

jamesd

TriathNanEilean wrote: »

Thanks for the correction. The Calculator program I found claimed it was using ONS data but I should have been less trusting.

It probably was using ONS data but it may have made several common mistakes:

1. Using period life expectancy instead of cohort life expectancy.
2. Using life expectancy at birth instead of life expectancy at the age reached so far (but the numbers are too high for this to be likely)
3. Using an older version of the ONS data. With life expectancies generally increasing this is sometimes quite significant.

Still, it did give you a much better idea than a news headline about life expectancy (at birth) would have done!