Am I Halfway? Life Lived = Expected Life

Vladimir Canudas-Romo, Max Planck Odense Center
Virginia Zarulli, Max Planck Odense Center

We have reached halfway in life when our age equals our remaining life expectancy at that age. The trends over time and over populations with historical data are investigated. Period and cohort perspectives show increase in the age where halfway in life is found, however the pace of the increase is different. In a period perspective, when halfway-age is compared with life expectancy at birth, e0, a marked disparity in the tempo of change is observed: over the observed time e0 doubles while halfway increases by 25%. In a cohort perspective, as it is the case with life expectancy, cohort halfway-age is higher than period halfway-age. Our estimates of cohort halfway-age for the most recent birth cohorts result in a halfway-age of about 50 years for females, approximately 10 years older than the observed period halfway-age.