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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
life expectancy
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ CDs have a life expectancy of at least 20 years.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ First, there have been substantial improvements in mortality over this century which are reflected in increased life expectancy.
▪ For life expectancy, the picture was similar.
▪ However, life expectancy on the Thames is still only four years compared with a natural figure of up to thirty years.
▪ In fact, women at all ages spent proportionately more of their remaining life expectancy in residential care than men.
▪ It is therefore crucial to include standardised mortality ratios alongside age weightings to correct for variations in life expectancy.
▪ Last week I decided to start running again, figuring maybe I could tack on a few hours to my life expectancy.
▪ The hutted wards, built more than 40 years ago with a life expectancy of 10 years are to be demolished.
Wiktionary
life expectancy

n. 1 (context of a person English) The amount of time one is expected to live. 2 (context figuratively by extension of an idea or an object English) The amount of time something is expected to last.

WordNet
life expectancy

n. an expected time to live as calculated on the basis of statistical probabilities

Wikipedia
Life expectancy

Life expectancy is a statistical measure of the average time an organism is expected to live, based on the year of their birth, their current age and other demographic factors including sex. The most commonly used measure of life expectancy is at birth (LEB), which can be defined in two ways: while cohort LEB is the mean length of life of an actual birth cohort (all individuals born a given year) and can be computed only for cohorts born many decades ago, so that all their members died, period LEB is the mean length of life of a hypothetical cohort assumed to be exposed since birth until death of all their members to the mortality rates observed at a given year.

National LEB figures reported by statistical national agencies and international organizations are indeed estimates of period LEB. In the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, LEB was 26 years; the 2010 world LEB was 67.2 years. For recent years, in Swaziland LEB is about 49, and in Japan, it is about 83. The combination of high infant mortality and deaths in young adulthood from accidents, epidemics, plagues, wars, and childbirth, particularly before modern medicine was widely available, significantly lowers LEB. But for those who survive early hazards, a life expectancy of 60 or 70 would not be uncommon. For example, a society with a LEB of 40 may have few people dying at precisely 40: most will die before 30 or very few after 55. In populations with high infant mortality rates, LEB is highly sensitive to the rate of death in the first few years of life. Because of this sensitivity to infant mortality, LEB can be subjected to gross misinterpretation, leading one to believe that a population with a low LEB will necessarily have a small proportion of older people. For example, in a hypothetical stationary population in which half the population dies before the age of five but everybody else dies at exactly 70 years old, LEB will be about 36, but about 25% of the population will be between the ages of 50 and 70. Another measure, such as life expectancy at age 5 (e), can be used to exclude the effect of infant mortality to provide a simple measure of overall mortality rates other than in early childhood; in the hypothetical population above, life expectancy at 5 would be another 65. Aggregate population measures, such as the proportion of the population in various age groups, should also be used along individual-based measures like formal life expectancy when analyzing population structure and dynamics.

Mathematically, life expectancy is the mean number of years of life remaining at a given age, assuming age-specific mortality rates remain at their most recently measured levels. It is denoted by e, which means the mean number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience. Longevity, maximum lifespan, and life expectancy are not synonyms. Life expectancy is defined statistically as the mean number of years remaining for an individual or a group of people at a given age. Longevity refers to the characteristics of the relatively long life span of some members of a population. Maximum lifespan is the age at death for the longest-lived individual of a species. Moreover, because life expectancy is an average, a particular person may die many years before or many years after the "expected" survival. The term " maximum life span" has a quite different meaning and is more related to longevity.

Life expectancy is also used in plant or animal ecology; life tables (also known as actuarial tables). The term life expectancy may also be used in the context of manufactured objects, but the related term shelf life is used for consumer products, and the terms "mean time to breakdown" (MTTB) and " mean time between failures" (MTBF) are used in engineering.

Life Expectancy (novel)

Life Expectancy is a novel by suspense/ horror writer Dean R. Koontz. The plot centers on five pivotal moments in the life of a self-proclaimed "lummox" named James "Jimmy" Tock.