what is life expectancy 
life expectancy is another use of mortality data an estimate of how many more years a person with certain characteristics current age sex and so forth is likely to live or what age they are likely to attain before they die life expectancy estimates have many uses in the insurance industry and elsewhere for example the internal revenue service publishes life expectancy tables that taxpayers must use to determine their annual required minimum distributions rmds from their retirement accounts in its most recent tables for example a newborn has a life expectancy of another 84 6 years while someone who is 120 or older the top limit of the table has a life expectancy of one more year 5the bottom linethe yearly probability of dying is a statistical estimate of the likelihood of a person dying within a one year period it can cover an entire population or break down death rates according to age sex and other factors such as tobacco use the yearly probability of dying is widely used in health studies by the government and by the insurance industry other mortality related statistics can use time periods shorter or longer than a single year 