Living Worlds

Research · Lifetimes · Oct 11, 2026

Men's life expectancy twenty years on, a year nobody had read

Metsix countries, 2025 held out

The test at a glance

What it tests
Accuracy against reality: men's life expectancy at birth, twenty years ahead, with 80% intervals.
Data
Statistics offices of Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Latvia; forecast frozen on data up to 2005.
Held out
2025 values for men. Each forecast is the office's 2005 value plus the forecast twenty-year gain.
Compared against
For the intervals, the earlier method (blocks of past residuals).
Bar
Mean error at most 1.2 years; mean lean within 0.5 years; interval rule in the protocol.
Result
1.09 years, 0.15 low on average; intervals held all six (score 4.56 against 7.13).

Living Worlds forecast men's life expectancy twenty years ahead within 1.09 years on average, inside the bar of 1.2, with no lean either way (0.15 years low on average, inside the 0.5 bar). Its 80% intervals held all six countries, against three for the earlier method, with a better interval score (4.56 against 7.13). Registered before any 2025 value for men was read; frozen on data up to 2005, each forecast a twenty-year gain added to the office's own 2005 figure, and scored on 2025 figures from Norway, Sweden, Finland, the Netherlands, Estonia and Latvia. The same frozen forecast is registered against the UN's 2026 revision for every country.

Protocol, result and scorer

Protocol Frozen forecast Lung cancer, 2005 WHO file checksums National 2005 Scorer Result UN 2026 protocol

Next

More national offices as they publish 2025, and the UN's 2026 revision for every country.

Lifetimes

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